TORONTO: Canadian country music and pop diva Shania Twain has ended her 14-year marriage to her music-producer husband Robert Mutt Lange.

In a statement here on May 15, her representative would only say that the couple were ending their marriage, without giving any reasons for the break-up. “This is a private matter and there will be no further comment at this time,’’ the statement added.

The 42-year-old singer had met Lange, who is 17 years her senior, in 1993 for collaboration on her first hit album The Woman in Me, and married him the same year.

The couple, who have been splitting their time between Switzerland and Lange’s native New Zealand, have a six-year-old son Eja. Thanks to her reclusive husband who has never given interviews, the two were rarely seen together in public.

The songs of her self-titled debut album were noticed by Lange who contacted her with an offer to work with her in 1993. Their collaboration and marriage took her to stardom, as her first album The Woman in Me became an instant hit.

With her later releases — Come on Over and Up! — Shania became a global phenomenon in country music and pop, selling millions of albums and notching up five Grammys.

In fact, Come on Over is the world’s biggest selling album by any female singer. In her hometown of Timmins, there is a museum devoted to her.