Shania Twain Seemingly Shades Taylor Swift in AMAs Clip, But Here’s What She Really Said

Did Shania Twain shade Taylor Swift at the 2019 American Music Awards? Before either of the singers had the chance to take the stage at Sunday night’s events, they were shrouded in drama due to a pre-show interview. Speaking with Entertainment Tonight about why she believed Swift to be deserving of the Artist of the Decade Award, a portion of Twain’s response was pulled out of context.

“Taylor is the epitome of a hard worker, talent. You don’t have to be beautiful to be a star,” a now viral video showed Twain saying, leading many to believe that she was taking a jab at Swift’s appearance.

Twain’s full quote, however, paints a much different picture.

“Taylor is the epitome of a hard worker, talent. You don’t have to be beautiful to be a star, but she carries her beauty with so much grace, without flaunting it,” Twain said. “I think she’s just a very special person. She’s dedicated, serious. She’s just a badass woman.”

In fact, there were no hard feelings at all between the two singers on Sunday. After Swift took the stage to perform a medley of her biggest hits over the past decade, she joined Twain on stage at the end of the night. During Twin’s eight-minute performance, she did acoustic covers of Post Malone’s “Rockstar,” Twenty One Pilots’ “Stressed Out,” Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” and Drake’s “God’s Plan,” before launching into her own “You’re Still the One,” “Any Man of Mine,” “That Don’t Impress Me Much,” and “Man! I Feel Like a Woman.”

Twain’s support for Swift proceeds the American Music Awards. After Swift’s AMAs performance was shrouded in drama, with allegations that her former record label, Big Machine Records, was forbidding her from performing songs from her back catalogue of music, Twain voiced her support for the 29-year-old when speaking to USA Today.

“I don’t know a lot about the details of that, but I’m a big supporter of Taylor,” she said. “I think she’s just incredibly brilliant. I haven’t had a chance to talk to her about it and I don’t really know where everybody is coming from, but I’ll always support the artist and their access to their own music. It seems a bit ridiculous to not have that.”