Shania Twain Talks About Ex-Husband's Affair

popeater.com

"I didn't want to kill myself but I didn't want to live," a somber Shania Twain said in an interview that aired Tuesday on 'The Oprah Winfrey Show.' "Our lives were intertwined in every respect and I really was completely shocked."

The country music superstar was, of course, talking about her mindset in the aftermath of finding out her husband of 14 years, Robert "Mutt" Lange, was having an inappropriate relationship with one of her closest friends, Marie-Anne Thiébaud, who was also a secretary at the couple's Switzerland chateau. (Both Mutt and Marie-Anne continue to deny the claims.)

Shania revealed to Oprah that she took what she calls a "pathetic" measure to repair her marriage, writing a letter to Marie-Anne and asking, "Why are you torturing me? Let it go, please. Find love somewhere else from someone else."

When the letter went unanswered, Shania wouldn't give up. "By not understanding and not knowing the details your imagination is left to run wild," she explains. "I never got the details. I phoned Marie-Anne and did everything I could to get the details out of her and she changed her number and that was it."

But in a twist of fate that plays out like a movie, Shania found love with the other jilted party in the affair -- Marie-Anne's ex-husband, Frédéric Thiébaud. It was he, the handsome Swiss Nestle executive, who helped the singer get back on her feet and see the split as "a very positive thing."

"Frédéric Nicolas Thiébaud has been a true gift to me as a compassionate, understanding friend," Shania writes in a letter to fans on her website, "and over time, an amazing love has blossomed from this precious friendship."

Shania and Frédéric were married in a beach-side, sunset ceremony in Rincon, Puerto Rico on New Year's Day 2011.