Shania Twain says cheating ex-husband deserves ‘empathy and understanding’ after affair with her best friend

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Shania Twain has said that her ex-husband “deserves empathy and understanding” after he cheated on her with her best friend.

The “Man! I Feel Like A Woman” singer split with her former partner Robert “Mutt” Lunge in 2008 after 15 years together when it emerged he was having an affair with Marie-Anne Thiébaud, who he is now married to.

Twain, 58, then married Thiébaud’s husband Frédéric Thiébaud six month’s after the finalisation of their divorce in an infamous couple’s swap, which she referred to as “musical chairs”.

In a new interview on Jamie Laing’s Great Company podcast, Twain shared her feelings on the matter, revealing that she would never “forget” what her ex-husband had done, but said that he deserved “empathy and understanding”. She also revealed she never speaks to him except through text.

“Forgiveness is in the family of letting go. But forgiveness, more specifically for me anyway, is not about forgetting necessarily,” she told Laing when asked about the experience.

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

Comparing the infidelity to her relationship with her father, she explained he was someone she could “totally forgive” because she understands “he wasn’t well”. Twain’s biological father reportedly left when she was two, and she took on the name of her alcoholic and violent step-father, who died in a car crash with her mother when the singer was 21.

“You don’t act certain ways unless there’s something wrong with you. I feel bad that he had those problems. So it’s very hard to hate or not be able to forgive somebody that you believe.

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“He’s a human being that deserves empathy and understanding. I think we all do, you know.”

The singer said it was her husband’s “weight” to bear his “great mistake” in cheating on her with her best friend.

“So, do I hate my ex-husband for making a mistake? No. It’s his mistake. Not my mistake. 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.”

Twain and Lunge share a 22-year-old son together and the singer confirmed that the pair do not communicate at all except through texts.

“Mutt and I parent well together — for people who don’t talk to each other. We’ll just text.”