Then, in June 2011, Twain announced a two-year residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. She had not performed live since July 2004. After this lucrative run – which began in December 2012 and brought in $43m – she went into the studio and recorded Now, an album of self-penned songs,
which was released last year. They might not have the hooks of her best work with Lange, but they provide a fascinating insight into her life. The lyrics are as personal as they get – from the shock of being deserted to the anger she feels towards her former friend.
You do not hold back, I say. She laughs and suggests I do not know the half of it. In fact, there were songs she wrote that were so vitriolic they could not go on the album. “If I’m really angry, I’ll say ‘fuck’ a lot. And, if I’m writing, that word will be in every line. There was one song I wrote about my cheating friend and there was a lot of fucks in there. I
hated her, so that’s the best word to use when you hate somebody.”
In the flesh, there is something so wholesome and mumsy about Twain that it comes as a shock when she swears. She is small and strikingly pretty (in 2009, scientists at the University of Toronto declared that she had
the perfect face). Today, she is an unlikely mix of dress-down casual and showbiz glam – black tracksuit bottoms, a black-and-white striped sweatshirt, trainers, false eyelashes with which you could sweep the floor and a huge diamond knuckle-duster on her wedding finger.
We meet in a Los Angeles hotel. The room is empty, but for three Brobdignagian bouquets of white roses. She tells me how much she loves roses, then returns to the subject uppermost in her mind. “‘Cunt’ is good, too. My friend said: ‘Say: “She’s a fucking cunt”’. That felt good to say. Those words were cathartic.” She says it almost beatifically, as if reciting the rosary.