Shania Twain Reveals Inspiring Reason She Joined ‘Real Country’ Cast

Real Country, the new TV talent show featuring Shania Twain, Jake Owen and Travis Tritt as panelists, will premiere on Tuesday, Nov. 13. The show, which offers the chance for contestants to perform in front of record label executives, was a big time commitment for the three stars. But for Twain, her decision to join the cast was a personal one.

“I’m trying to make a difference,” Twain told PopCulture.com. “I’m very passionate about, and concerned about the regression in country music, in the genre, as far as the ratio of women on the radio compared to [men]. I grew up listening to country music that had lots of women in the genre. And all these years later, there’s less women than ever. What is that? That’s called regression.”

“I’m bothered by that,” she continued. “I’ve already had my heyday, I’m not doing it for me. I’m worried about the upcoming girls that are gonna get discouraged and say, ‘You know what? There’s no room for us in this genre. There’s no room for women.’”

It’s for the female contestants, those who might feel like they are without hope, that Twain decided to join the show.

“I want to stick my neck out and push for women,” Twain explained. “They’ve gotta be talented enough. Not for the sake of just having women, of course they’ve got to be talented. But the talent is out there. I think a lot of them will slip through the cracks if somebody doesn’t stick up for them. So that’s what I’m here to do.”

The country music icon knows exactly what she’s looking for in any artists who take the stage, male or female — and she won’t settle for less.

“I’m looking for diversity. Anybody that can sing their truth, that is a sincere, artist who has a respect for the history of country music,” Twain acknowledged. “It’s like, if you go to another country, you learn a few words of their language. It’s just a respectful thing to do. So I think there’s a certain level of knowledge that I would imagine, or that I would expect anyone getting into a genre, needs to have in order to have that respect and understand boundaries as well.”

“You have to understand who you’re making music for and I don’t care whether you started singing country music when you were six or you started singing country music yesterday,” she added. “I wanna see what you can do with that commitment.”

Real Country premieres on Tuesday, Nov. 13, at 10 p.m. ET on the USA Network.

Photo Credit: Getty images/NBC