Céline Dion shared how she's keeping positive and choosing to keep "living the life" amid her diagnosis with stiff-person syndrome as she prepares for her upcoming performances in Paris.
Amid her battle with stiff-person syndrome, the “My Heart Will Go On” singer is finally ready to make her way back to the stage, preparing for 10 shows in Paris starting in September. And while the road hasn’t been easy, she’s ready to share the new version of herself with her fans.
“I’m honest, and it’s not always pretty,” Dion told Harper’s Bazaar in an interview published Aug. 18. “Sometimes it’s happy things, sometimes it’s sad, but it’s called life.”
“Instead of questioning life, can you live life?” she asked. “So I’m living my life, girl. I’m living the life.”
In preparation for her upcoming shows, Dion has been focusing on her physical abilities with the aid of Pilates sessions and ballet classes—all in an effort to make sure that she is able to perform and give back to her fans.
“It’s been so long,” the 58-year-old explained, “I would like to offer them something to show how I’ve missed them.”
And the “Because You Loved Me” singer is ready for every aspect of public life again, even the parts she might have found more annoying before her diagnosis.
“Well, girl,” she thought to herself, “if you don’t want to sign autographs and you don’t want to get yourself pretty and you don’t want to be disturbed because your pasta is going to get cold, you can always stay home. But look at what you have.”
Throughout her illness, Dion—who shares sons René-Charles, 25, and 15-year-old twins Nelson and Eddy with her late husband René Angélil—has always shared how her fans have helped her navigate her health journey.
"For a long time—for so many years—I have felt the love and the support of my fans around the world," Dion told E! News at the 2024 premiere of her Amazon documentary I Am: Céline Dion. "They helped me to get where I am today."
And it was their support that helped the “It’s All Coming Back to Me” singer realize that she couldn’t give up on herself after her SPS diagnosis in 2022.
"The way I see it, I have two choices," Dion told Vogue France in 2024. "Either I train like an athlete and work super hard, or I switch off and it's over, I stay at home, listen to my songs, stand in front of my mirror and sing to myself."
"Life doesn't give you any answers,” she added. “You just have to live it!"
For more about Dion’s health battle with SPS, keep reading.
The COVID-19 pandemic had forced Céline Dion to press pause on her Courage World Tour in 2020 and she was looking forward to getting back on the road in 2022. But that spring the singer said she'd be postponing her return until February 2023 while she continued to deal with a lingering health issue.
