Céline Dion says she’s trying her best to get back on stage with a new Las Vegas show.
The French-Canadian crooner, in a recent interview with BBC News, revealed she struggled to sing live long before she was diagnosed with the rare neurological disorder, Stiff Person Syndrome. The condition, for the unversed, causes muscles to spasm around the body.
Dion said that while she was still doing stage shows, she had to request the conductor of her backing musicians to bring certain songs down a key sometimes.
Céline Dion discusses struggles with SPS and her road to recovery
“I was just feeling a little strange, like a little spasm,” Dion told BBC News in an interview published June 14. “My voice was struggling, I was starting to push a little bit.”
By asking the conductor to bring the keys a note down, Dion told the publication she was hoping it might give her voice a chance to recover because taking time off at the time felt impossible. “These shows were sold out for a year and a half, going around the globe,” Dion noted, quipping, “And I’m going to say to people, ‘Excuse me about my spasm? Excuse me about my je ne sais quoi?”‘
Eventually, however, it became all too much for the crooner to handle, and as the world knows, Dion revealed her Stiff Person Syndrome diagnosis in a December 2022 Instagram video.
Now, “My goal is to be part of the funds and raise money for awareness and to find a cure. That would be amazing,” Dion says.
About Céline Dion’s plausible Las Vegas show
“We have been working so hard to put this show together because I am back,” Dion enthusiastically told BBC News, adding, “I’ll be on stage. I don’t know when exactly, but trust me I will scream it out loud.”
“I can’t wait,” she concluded.
For now, though, the My Heart Will Go On singer’s fans can see her recent health struggles and how it has affected her life in a new documentary titled I Am: Celine Dion, directed by Irene Taylor. It arrives June 25 on Amazon Prime.
