Powerful Women of Music Navigate Divorce
The latest tales of celebrity divorce involve two powerful women in the music business: Shania Twain and Sarah McClachlan.
According to CBS News, country music superstar Shania Twain has finalized her divorce from ex-husband Robert “Mutt” Lange. The two were married for 14 years, and separated in May of 2008.
Shortly following their separation, there came the allegation that Lange was engaged in an extramarital affair with the couple’s secretary and caretaker of their Swiss chateau, Marie-Anne Thiebaud. In an odd twist, Twain has been spotted around town spending close time with Thiebaud’s ex-husband, Frederic.
Twain is also steering her career in a different direction, with a new TV series that will air on the Oprah Winfrey Network, called “Why Not? With Shania Twain.” And according to CBS, there are even rumors that she could be replacing feisty Brit Simon Cowell as a judge on the very popular singing competition show American Idol.
The divorce’s finalization doesn’t seem to have Twain hung up. Sources said that she “looked radiantly happy” on the arm of Thiebaud at a recent gala event.
For songstress Sarah McLachlan, her personal struggles, including a divorce from husband Ashwin Sood, provided her with the material that would fill her first album since 2003. She and Sood, who is a drummer, were married for 11 years, and they have two daughters together.
The new album is “Laws of Illusion,” and many of its songs deal with themes that emerged as a result of McLachlan’s divorce and subsequent heartbreak.
“The emotional roller coaster of the past couple years played heavily,” McLachlan told Toronto’s CTV. “I find it very difficult to write when I’m happy. It’s a fleeting, light-hearted experience and you don’t want to analyze it because I’m sure you’ll find something wrong with it if you looked hard enough.”
When there’s heartbreak and sadness, she went on, there is more to grab onto and wrench the emotional content out of. In the midst of the most intense emotional turmoil, McLachlan didn’t have the time to write music, however. Just taking care of her two daughters was enough, along with trying to figure out where to go from there, like many people must do when they are faced with divorce.
“My world sort of fell apart,” she said “and I just had to work to figure out what the heck I was going to do next.” McLachlan explained that it was easier for her to write music after the fact, when the deepest emotional angst had passed on.
When she did begin to write about the divorce, if not in specific terms then in general emotional themes, it came easily to her.
McLachlan has said that she has difficulty analyzing her own musical work, despite her articulate descriptions of songs and lyrics and music.
When asked how the past few years of turmoil affected her, she replied, “God, I hope I’m a bit wiser. I certainly feel like I’ve been through the wringer the past couple years. And I feel like, all these experiences, good and bad, are where we grow—especially the hard times. That’s where you find out what you’re really made of.”
