Shania Twain Sides With Swift and Bieber on ‘Watch What Happens Live’
In celebration of her recently released CD/DVD, Shania: Still the One Live From Vegas, and the announcement of her final tour, Shania Twain has been making the media rounds. On Wednesday night, the pop-country powerhouse was a guest (along with former Gossip Girl star Penn Badgley) on Bravo’s loosely formatted late-night talk show, Watch What Happens Live. Twain, who was decked out in black leather pants and a vintage Rolling Stones concert t-shirt beneath a black jacket, played several games during her appearance, including one that had her blindfolded and guessing the names of celebrities. She also took a tequila shot from a shotglass glued to an old wooden ski, pleaded the Fifth on working with divas and revealed the things that do and don’t impress her much. In between call from viewers, she also addressed a serious question about the break-up of her marriage to producer-songwriter “Mutt” Lange. Here are four of the more revealing moments from the show:
1. Twain’s hit song and video “That Don’t Impress Me Much” was referred to several times during the 30-minute gabfest. In the regular “Here’s What” segment of the show, when she was asked whether several things do or don’t impress her much, she revealed that a three-legged dog that can walk, Kanye West, Oprah and people living on Mars all do impress her much. Things that don’t impress Shania: Breast implants and scientists who claim they can do a head transplant before 2017. (“Who needs hair?” she said).
2. When a viewer called in to ask her thoughts on the antics of her fellow Canadian, Justin Bieber, she answered, “He’s young and he’s got to go through all of the stuff that he goes through. I think he’s a great kid and I hope Canada still loves him very much; he’s a very talented guy.”
Another viewer wanted to know what she thinks about her pop-country crossover artist Taylor Swift. “I love Taylor,” she said. “I met her when she was younger and starting out. I think she’s just finding her way . . . and I imagine she enjoys being a multi-genre artist. I enjoy being a multi-genre artist. I enjoy the mixed audience; I enjoy all the age groups. It does probably keep life interesting for her as a songwriter, as well. She gets to tap into a lot of different mindsets and emotions.”
3. A reluctant Twain told Cohen she has not worked with Lange since their split, and that because her next album will be the first without him behind the board, the challenge of doing the Vegas show was a necessary precursor. “I needed to get over a different hill in my career without him before tackling an album,” she said. “Now that I’m through Vegas and that was success, I built a lot of confidence.”
4. In a game called “Plead the Fifth,” where she could only refuse to answer one of three questions, Cohen noted that Twain’s Come on Over album has sold an estimated 40 million copies worldwide and is the best selling album ever by a female artist. Asked how much money she made from the LP, the singer took a guess at $20 million.
The second question was about her 1999 appearance on the VH1 Divas special, where she shared the stage with Mariah Carey, Aretha Franklin, Gloria Estefan and Celine Dion. Asked which of them was most challenging to work with, Twain pleaded the Fifth. She may have wished she’d saved that response for the final question, however. Noting that in her 2012 memoir, From This Moment On, she addressed the collapse of her marriage to Lange, after it was revealed that he had an affair with her best friend, Cohen asked, “If you ran into her today, what would you say to her?” Thinking about it for a few seconds, Twain smiled, looked directly into the camera and answered, “I wish I’d never met you.” She quickly added, however, “I can’t say I would be better off because I think I’ve learned a lot from that. I don’t regret it.”