Shania Twain reflects on ex-husband’s ‘great mistake’ cheating with her best friend: ‘Sad for him’

Shania Twain is a forgiver.

The “Any Man of Mine” singer, 58, revealed that she’s forgiven her ex-husband Robert “Mutt” Lange for having an affair with her close friend Marie-Anne Thiébaud in 2008.

“Forgiveness is in the family of letting go,” Twain said on the Great Company with Jamie Laing podcast on May 28. “But forgiveness, more specifically for me anyway, is not about forgetting necessarily.”

“It’s about understanding the other person, and that might mean that they’re wrong,” she added. “Maybe you believe forever that whatever they did was wrong.”

Twain and Lange, 75, were married for 15 years when he had an affair with Marie-Anne. The pair, who welcomed their son Eja in 2001, separated in 2008 and divorced two years later.

In the aftermath of the affair, Twain fell in love with Frédéric Thiébaud, Marie-Anne’s former husband. They got married in January 2011 and are still together.

“Do I hate my ex-husband for making a mistake? No. It’s his mistake. Not my mistake,” Twain said on the podcast.

“So sad for him that he made such a great mistake that he has to live with. And I don’t know what that is, but it’s not … That’s not my weight,” she continued.

Twain also acknowledged that her ex-husband had “problems,” which has made it easier to forgive him.

“It’s not for him, not for, you know,” she said. “So, it’s very hard to hate or not be able to forgive somebody that you believe. He’s a human being that deserves empathy and understanding. I think we all do.”

Twain previously opened up about the affair that broke up her marriage in an exclusive interview with the New York Post in 2015.

“When that happened, I thought, ‘Forget it, this is more than I can handle — I’m never going to sing again,’ ” she said. “I had to grieve through it.”

The “From This Moment On” singer also confirmed she doesn’t have a relationship with her ex-best friend.

“I don’t see her, ever. I don’t invite that trigger into my life … She’s not my future — she’s my past,” she said.

Twain has learned to move past her ex-husband’s affair with the help of Thiébaud, 54. In 2020, Twain spoke to People at the American Heart Association’s annual Go Red For Women Red Dress Collection fashion show about how her current husband made her believe in love again.

“I’m so grateful I found the faith and courage to love again — because the last thing you want to do when you’re crushed is love again,” she explained.

“When you have a great loss, you lose faith; you get very discouraged. I’m sure a lot of people say, ‘I’m never going to love again. I never want to fall in love again.’ Songs have been written about that.”

“I’m really glad that that got turned around for me,” Twain added, “and that’s what this relationship is.”