As a teenager, she suffered from eating disorders - both bulimia and anorexia. She went to therapy to deal with these issues, and eventually learned that she had chronic depression. She was also plagued by anxiety attacks, which often happened when she was watching movies. She was prescribed medication, but never stayed on it, since she didn't like they way the pills made her feel.
Alanis has explored relationships with women. Here's what she said on the matter: "I never had any intentions of having my lifelong partner be a woman, but stranger things have happened. I was open-minded to it, but fortunately - or unfortunately - I realized I was heterosexual. In moments I wish it weren't the case."
Alanis is from Ottawa, Canada. She moved to Los Angeles in 1994 to work with Glen Ballard, who helped her write and produce her album
Jagged Little Pill. She is just the second artist from Ottawa to have significant chart success in America; the first was
Paul Anka.
Alanis was an actress as a child. She was on the Nickelodeon show You Can't Do That On Television at age 10, and appeared in a movie a year later with Matt LeBlanc as her boyfriend. In 1992, she moved to LA to appear in the TV sitcom Just One Of The Girls.
She started writing songs when she was just 10 years old. In 1991 when she was 16, her first album, Alanis, was released, which was followed by Now Is the Time a year later. She co-wrote all of the songs on both albums (mostly with her producer Leslie Howe), and they sold well in Canada. The songs were of the Dance-Pop variety and a marked departure from her breakthrough release Jagged Little Pill, which was issued in 1995.
She opened for Vanilla Ice on his 1990 tour.
Her 1999 tour was sponsored by MP3.com. She received company stock in the deal, which was worth millions before the Internet bubble burst a year later. She did sell $1.5 million worth of the stock before it collapsed.
She was a teen star in Canada equivalent to Debbie Gibson or Tiffany in the US. She won a Juno award (Canadian Grammy) for Most Promising Female Vocalist in 1992.
She did not have a US record deal when she recorded Jagged Little Pill. She did not look for a label until until she was done with it because she didn't want the record company messing with it.
She signed to Madonna's vanity record label Maverick Records after performing an acoustic audition for their executives.
She is the first Canadian female to have a #1 album in the US (Jagged Little Pill).
When she was a teenager in Canada, she did catalog modeling.
She used to date Dave Coulier, who was on the TV show Full House. They met at a hockey game in 1992.
Alanis was named for her father. Her parents were looking for an original girl's name that was a derivative of his name, Alan.
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Suggestion credit:
Paul - Detroit, MI
She dated the actor Ryan Reynolds from 2002-2007. He was the first romantic partner she lived with - they both had houses in Vancouver, so they merged into one. After their split, Reynolds became a top dog in Hollywood and married other movie stars: first Scarlett Johansson, then Blake Lively.
She sang The Osmonds' "
One Bad Apple" on
Star Search, a US TV show that tried to discover new talent. She lost to Chad the Singing Cowboy.
Fame was overwhelming to Alanis. She's very much a people-watcher, and when she became a star, she suddenly became the one being watched. "I thought fame would offer a connection to people, but the opposite ended up being true," she said.
She portrayed God in the 1999 movie Dogma.
She would smoke some occasional pot, but was never big on drugs. She says her only addictions were to work and food. "I was too much of a control freak to be a drug person," she explained.
Alanis Morissette has a twin brother. Fellow musician Wade Morissette is 12 minutes younger than his sister.
Alanis Morissette landed her first UK agony aunt gig on the Guardian's Weekend magazine. Her first column was in the January 16, 2016 edition of the supplement. The musician's move into offering advice wasn't a huge surprise as she also has a podcast that touches on similar topics to her new role.
So what are Morissette's qualifications for telling people how to live their lives? She said it has for long been her job in her family: "Parents, brothers, even extended family members, that was the role I took on, because I suppose I had this combination of intuition and empathy. I cut my teeth, basically, listening for a living."
In 2017, Jonathan Schwartz, who managed her from 2009-2016, admitted to stealing $4.8 million from Morissette and about $2 million more from other clients. It was an egregious and outlandish theft spread over more than 100 transactions. He used the money to pay for lavish vacations (including a trip to Bora Bora) and gambling debts.
She married the rapper Mario "Souleye" Treadway in 2010. She became a mom late in life, with her first child, a boy named Ever, arriving in 2010 when Alanis was 36. Daughter Onyx followed in 2016 and son Winter in 2019.
In the studio, it's very often her first take that is used as the final vocal track, which was the case on "
You Oughta Know." Glen Ballard, who produced
Jagged Little Pill and her next album,
Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie,
told Songfacts: "When you're working with Alanis Morissette, all you need to do is turn on the microphone, I promise you, because she is so distinctive and so completely tied to the lyric with her vocal approach."
She has done her part to remove the stigma of breastfeeding in public; on the May 2020 cover of Health magazine, she is seen breastfeeding her son, Winter.
