Shania Twain reveals that she rejected a collaborative album with Prince
In a new interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music, Shania Twain revealed that she once took a call from Prince, who proposed the collaborative project to create “the next Rumours“. The conversation took place in 2008 when the Canadian singer was heartbroken from then-husband Robert Lange’s infidelities with her best friend and was preparing for divorce. As a result of her personal problems, Twain ultimately passed up on the opportunity as she wasn’t ready.
“I missed out on that because Prince called me when I got divorced,” Twain told Zane Lowe. “We’re on the phone and he said, ‘Shania, why don’t you come to Paisley Park? I want to make the next Rumours album with you.’ And that was the weirdest thing he could have ever have said, because Mutt — his standard of what he thought, where I could live as a standard — was that album, Rumours album.”
“When Prince said that to me, I’m like, oh man, I’m not even divorced yet. I’m just like, I’ve been dumped, but I’m not, obviously, divorced yet. I’m like, this is way too ironic what you’re saying. Right? And I’m such a major Prince fan. And then on top of it, I hadn’t found my voice yet,” she continued, referencing the battle with Lyme disease that has seriously impeded her singing ability. “I was still working on it. I was so far from finding it still.”
However, it wasn’t meant to be, with Prince taking an issue with Twain’s liberal use of profanities proving to be the final impediment. She said: “I’m on the phone with him and I’m swearing like I always do. I mean, because I’m just at home and it’s — He said to me, ‘Well, if you do decide to come to Paisley Park, there’s no swearing allowed here.'”
Twain continued: “So that was another strike. I’m like, oh no, I love you so much, but I don’t think I could get through writing and recording an album without swearing, somewhere along the way! What are you going to do to me if I swear? I might have to stand in the corner or something. I wasn’t sure about that. I don’t think I was ready for what all that was going to mean for me. I didn’t give up on it or anything, but then he died.”
Shania Twain’s new album, Queen of Me, was released today.
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