Yahoo Lifestyle Shania Twain Says She Refuses to Be 'Put in a Box' in the Music Industry: 'I Don't Want to Be Contained' (Exclusive)
"I have to be able to find my own way," the singer, who has dabbled with both country and pop music, tells PEOPLE
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Shania Twain in June 2023.Shania Twain refuses to conform to one set thing.
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, the singer, 59, opens up about how she has never allowed herself to be contained within the music industry, by executives and fans alike.
"If I feel like I'm being put in a box, I start to panic," Twain, who stars in a Coffee mate ad for the 2025 Super Bowl, says. "I run in any direction I can because I don't want to be contained. I have to be able to find my own way."
"Sometimes I'm not even sure where I'm going myself. How can somebody else tell me that, right? So I need the freedom to explore and to land wherever that exploration takes me," she adds.
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Shania Twain in July 2023.Twain's music career began in April 1993, when she released her self-titled debut album, though it was a commercial flop.
The star later rose to fame with her second studio album, 1995's The Woman in Me, which featured hit country singles including "Any Man of Mine" and "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?"
Two years later, Twain released her follow-up album, Come on Over, including hit singles that showed off more of her pop side and cemented her as a crossover artist, such as "You're Still the One," From This Moment on," "That Don't Impress Me Much" and "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!"
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Up!, released in 2002, did the same, with singles including "I'm Gonna Getcha Good!" and "Forever and for Always."
Twain later went on to release Now (2017) and Queen of Me (2023) and has toured across the globe, as well as taken part in numerous Las Vegas residencies.
Over the course of her illustrious career, Twain has received five Grammy Awards, two World Music Awards and 39 BMI Songwriter Awards, as well as inductions into Canada's Walk of Fame and the Hollywood Walk of Fame, plus the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
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Shania Twain in October 2023.According to Twain, getting to experiment with music genres throughout her career allowed her to play by her own rules and not those of another. "If somebody's already dictating that, it just ruins it all for me. It spoils the fun and it kills the passion of the creativity that I'm creating as I go," she explains. "If that gets interrupted, I think you really kill the spirit of the artist."
Looking at other musicians who have refused to be contained to one genre — including Beyoncé, who recently released her country album, Cowboy Carter, and won album of the year for it at the 2025 Grammys — Twain tells PEOPLE "It's really great to see."
"I'm always championing anybody that does things that are unexpected by the industry, or unexpected by the audience," she continues. "They may not have seen it coming, but the artist does have a sense of where they want to go exploring, and I really think it's wonderful that they do, that they explore it, and they take it to whatever limit interests them."
"We get bored too, if we're not allowed to stay open and channel things outside of what would be considered our normal or what's expected of us," adds the mother of one.
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