For his part, Mutt denied the affair allegations, telling People in May 2008 that his split from Shania was “just a growing apart, that’s all.” Echoing his denial, Marie-Anne later added to the outlet, “You cannot believe everything you read in the press.”
But while Mutt and Marie-Anne did begin dating, Shania had no plans of striking up a romance with Frédéric.
“Although I had known Frederic for about nine years, I had never really known him,” the Grammy winner wrote in her memoir. “I mean, he was my close friend’s husband. I thought he was a wonderful, considerate person, and anyone could see that he was an attentive husband and father, but we were friends by association only.”
However, they grew closer as they leaned on one another.
“It stands to reason that we supported each other during this time of our mutual betrayal, staying in touch, mostly by phone and email every couple of days, as I’d left for Canada at this point,” the Ontario-born musician added. “After all, who else could understand better what the other was going through?”
It wasn’t until December 2009—about three months after Shania returned to Switzerland—that she and Frédéric shared their first kiss, their kids egging them on after watching them dance beside a campfire.
“We were happy,” she wrote. “Relief came rushing through us, as the ice had been broken. Fred and I were surprised and relieved by our children’s encouragement to be ourselves in love, and from that moment on, the four of us began to form a reassembled family, building a nest, a new foundation, reconstructing our lives as a unit after the fall of the ones we’d lost.”
