The astounding return of Céline Dion

Helen BrownFri, September 11, 2026 at 1:03 PM UTC

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Céline Dion in Paris this month ahead of a string of comeback concerts in the city - Getty/Simon Wohlfahrt“Notre Céline” is how the French refer to Céline Dion. And a second “chez moi” is how she refers to France. One of the most popular female singers of all time, Dion has built a juggernaut of a 250-million-unit-shifting career out of amplifying traditional French chanson into bombastic power ballads.

“Notre Céline” is how the French refer to Céline Dion. And a second “chez moi” is how she refers to France. One of the most popular female singers of all time, Dion has built a juggernaut of a 250-million-unit-shifting career out of amplifying traditional French chanson into bombastic power ballads.

So it’s no wonder the 58-year-old Francophone Canadian has chosen Paris as the city in which to make her stage comeback this weekend, after six years spent battling a rare and debilitating neurological condition called Stiff Person Syndrome (SPS).

By the time British and American audiences first heard of Dion in the mid-1990s – her anglophone breakthrough was Think Twice in 1994, while singing the Oscar-winning Titanic theme My Heart Will Go On (1997) made her a household name – she had already been a star in France for a decade.

Dion was just 14 when she released her breakthrough single D’amour ou d’amitié in 1983, immediately charming France’s chat-show hosts with an arresting blend of blithe innocence and mature poise. There’s always been a frisson between the tormented intensity of her vocals and the apparent ease with which she semi-gargles her way through the octaves. (As she says to Ryan Reynolds, when he tells her to “just dial it in” in an amusing cameo for a Deadpool 2 music video: “This thing only goes up to 11!”)

A 14-year-old Dion in 1983 at the time of her breakthrough single in France, D’amour ou d’amitié - Getty/Raph Gatti and Valerie Macon

She kept the flag flying for Francophone pop when she won the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest (weirdly, representing Switzerland) with Ne partez pas sans moi. By 1994 she had teamed up with the popular French songwriter Jean-Jacques Goldman to record the Francophone album D’eux, which would become the best-selling French-language album of all time, shifting more than 11 million copies.

In the intervening years she released a succession of hit albums before slightly disappearing from public view, her isolation largely brought on by illness. But Dion’s star never faded, and when in 2024 she made a rare, brief public appearance to stand on the balcony of the Eiffel Tower and sing Edith Piaf’s classic Hymne a l’amour at the opening of the Paris Olympics, the hearts of her millions of fans around the world soared.

Winning the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest representing Switzerland - Getty/Sobli/RDB

That return signalled that Paris was still Dion’s safe stage. And now, she’s going to need all the security of her French fanbase’s love and understanding when she steps up to the microphone at the sold-out La Défense Arena (Europe’s largest) on Saturday night.

Music insiders are equally excited. Veteran promoter John Giddings, who runs the Isle of Wight Festival, describes Dion as “a fighter” and one of the “nicest, most hardworking” artists he’s ever worked with. On her return to the stage, he says: “I think it’s fantastic; what she fought against is incredible. She was the only artist to ever ask me if I was making enough money – I stupidly said yes.”

As revealed in her raw 2024 Amazon Prime documentary I Am: Céline Dion, the agonising symptoms of SPS can be triggered by the “stimulation” of performance. The film showed her being injected with plasma from between 1,000 and 15,000 different donor antibodies in an attempt to boost her failing immune system. She was shown shaking, crying and curled into the foetal position – hands tautened into claws – as a medical team administered first one, then a second nasal spray to release her from a terrible spasm.

The whole excruciating episode, we learn, is the fallout from having thrown herself into the “passion” of singing a few minutes earlier. “Music,” she sobs, tears trickling down her crumpled, make-up-free face, “I miss it a lot.” She describes her mighty voice almost as a separate entity from herself. “Before I was hit with SPS,” she says, “my voice was the conductor of my life.”

Dion singing the Edith Piaf’s classic Hymne a l’amour from the balcony of the Eiffel Tower in 2024 - Getty

Unlike other powerhouse divas who’ve made documentaries about themselves – Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez among them – Dion comes across as an understated person when she isn’t performing. She wanders through a storage unit containing all her stage costumes with a slightly lost, wistful air. Her home and off-stage wardrobe are all decorated in muted, bling-free tones. We see her rifling through her drawers for a pair of soft grey socks and watching her twin teenage sons playing computer games. She clearly adores her boys and her dogs (her documentary is dedicated to her late golden retriever, and she recently showed off a fluffy new puppy).

Eddy and Nelson are the youngest of her three boys with late husband and manager René Angélil, who died of cancer, aged 73, in 2016. The nature of Dion and Angélil’s relationship remains a subject of debate among fans. She was 12 years-old when she first met Angélil (then 38) in 1980; he was still married to his second wife, singer Anne Renée.

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Dion with her husband and manager René Angélil and their three sons in Las Vegas in 2011; Dion’s mother, Thérèse, is on the right - Steven Lawton/Film Magic

The youngest of 14 children raised in the Montréal suburb of Charlemagne, Dion’s childhood was poor yet filled with love. She recalls singing for her family, standing on the kitchen table, from the age of five. But that kitchen table was often bare. Dion’s mother (who went on to become a TV chef known as “Maman Dion” following her daughter’s success) was often forced to feed the family with carrot pies.

Into this scramble for resources came Angélil, dangling the golden ticket. He had been a pop star himself in the 1960s, specialising in French-language versions of hits by bands including the Beatles. He’d transferred into management in the 1970s and was already a regional big deal by the time he heard Dion’s demo tape. He mortgaged his house to fund her first album.

Angélil and Dion began dating when she was 19 and he was 45. Her family were concerned by the 26-year age gap and potential power imbalance.“I have to say that for my mum he was not the Prince Charming,” Dion told Access Hollywood in 2013.

Earlier this year, Dion’s longtime producer, Vito Luprano, released a memoir in which he claims to have spotted “lingering looks” and “chemistry” between Angélil and Dion from when she was just 17. He paints a picture of a besotted Dion whose life was controlled by her husband/manager, and notes how rare it was for the singer to be alone with anyone without her husband present, noting that in all the years they worked together: “Celine had never once asked me to share a meal or a coffee with me… we all knew that unless René was present, Celine was off-limits.”

Luprano also accused Angélil of calculated emotional manipulation. He believes that Angélil engineered an argument with Dion before she recorded her 1996 smash hit All by Myself to pull a more tortured vocal from her. He recalls sitting with Dion in the car on the way to the recording studio and noticing she “looked vulnerable, heavy with sadness”. When Lupano confronted Angélil, he alleges the manager did not deny distressing his wife on purpose, arguing that his decision to upset her was justified by the powerful performance the row produced.

Despite the rumours, Dion remained devoted to Angélil through three bouts of cancer, and until his death - Richard Corkery/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images

Despite what might strike outsiders as a disturbing dynamic, Dion remained devoted to Angélil through three bouts of cancer, and until his death. In the documentary, the same song – All By Myself – is played as she walks in a black veil behind her husband’s coffin. Angélil’s death was not Dion’s only experience with grief. Just two days after her husband’s death, her brother Daniel died from cancer, aged 59.

It turns out Dion first began experiencing symptoms of SPS almost 20 years ago. One day after breakfast her voice began glitching. She felt no problem with her lungs, but experienced a tightening of muscles and tendons surrounding them. “I was freaked out,” she says. Over the following years she began taking Valium – which allowed her to walk steadily and to swallow – among other drugs. “One pill. Two pills, five pills…” she recalls. “I don’t want to sound dramatic but I could have died.”

In 2021 her health forced her to cancel a much-hyped Las Vegas residency, and in August 2022 she was finally formally diagnosed with SPS. The condition is so rare that it’s only diagnosed in 1 to 2 people in a million, although it may affect many more whose symptoms are misdiagnosed as similar illnesses such as multiple sclerosis. Women aged between 30 and 60 are the most affected, and research indicates that it may result from an autoimmune response in the brain and spinal cord.

Dion singing at the 02 in London in 2017; she is set to perform a series of 16 concerts this autumn - Getty/Dave J Hogan

Living with the condition looks exhausting, and Dion’s sons have publicly expressed concern about the impact the Paris concerts will have on their mother’s health.

Yet Dion’s biographer Élisabeth Reynaud has told the press that the singer is “in a state of total determination” as she prepares to lift the mic again. The current plan is for Dion to perform a series of 16 concerts this autumn, with shows taking place three times a week on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. She has a further 10 performances lined up for May 2027.

It’s going to be a challenge. We won’t hear the voice Dion once had. But I suspect the shows will be kept afloat by arenas filled with love. The heart behind those songs will go on… And on.

Celine Dion plays La Défense Arena in Paris, France from Sept 16 to Oct 17, then May 8 to May 29 2027 (tickets and information here)

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