Céline Dion, 58, has opened up about the grueling rehabilitation routine powering her return to concert stages in Paris this fall.
The Grammy winner detailed her daily regimen in an interview with Harper’s Bazaar published Tuesday, describing how she has rebuilt her body and voice after a 2022 diagnosis of stiff person syndrome left her unable to sing or walk properly. Dion told the outlet she undergoes physical therapy, vocal therapy, immunotherapy and takes prescribed medications, even though no FDA-approved treatment yet exists for the rare neurological autoimmune disease.
That treatment protocol allowed her to make a carefully staged return at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where she performed Édith Piaf’s “Hymne à L’Amour” from the Eiffel Tower, and later that year at the 1001 Seasons of Elie Saab fashion show in Saudi Arabia. Now she has layered in 90-minute Pilates sessions up to three times weekly plus two ballet classes as she prepares for her Paris La Défense Arena residency.
“It’s been so long,” she told Harper’s Bazaar. “I would like to offer them something to show how I’ve missed them.”
The “My Heart Will Go On” singer expanded her originally announced 10 shows at the arena to 17 after tickets sold out rapidly, with performances now scheduled across September and October. She gushed to the outlet about her progress, admiring how she has fallen and gotten back up repeatedly throughout her rehabilitation.
Reflecting on why she chose to share her diagnosis publicly in December 2022, Dion explained, “They paid for tickets. They bought my records. They gave me that luxury. So the least I can do is tell them that I’m alive.”
In the viral moment that revealed her condition to the world, Dion posted an emotional video to Instagram on Dec. 8, 2022, telling fans she had been dealing with health problems for a long time and that it had been difficult to face the challenges and talk about everything she had been going through. She explained that the spasms affected every aspect of her daily life, sometimes causing difficulties when she walked and not allowing her to use her vocal cords to sing the way she was used to. “All I know is singing. It’s what I’ve done all my life, and it’s what I love to do the most,” she said in that announcement. The diagnosis forced her to cancel the remainder of her Courage World Tour, which had already been postponed from 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
What Dion did not reveal in that initial announcement was how long she had been suffering. She told Harper’s Bazaar she first experienced symptoms 17 years before her diagnosis, back in 2008 while on her Taking Chances World Tour in Germany. Before putting a name to the condition, she would cancel shows thinking she was suffering from sinus infections or coughs. She later told TODAY’s Hoda Kotb that she had been taking high doses of diazepam, up to 90 milligrams daily, to relax her body enough to perform—an amount that can be lethal. “I did not know, honestly, that it could kill me,” she said in the June 2024 interview. She weaned herself off during the pandemic with medical help.
Dion described singing with stiff person syndrome to Billboard as feeling like “somebody is strangling you,” She told Kotb that her feet would cramp and lock into position, her fingers would get stuck while cooking, and severe episodes could break ribs.
Her physician, Dr. Amanda Piquet, told WGN9 that the Céline Dion Foundation has funneled $2 million into research that has led to a potential breakthrough using modified CAR T-cell therapy, with patients in studies showing 46% improvement. “I’m not ready to use the ‘C’ word yet,” Piquet said. “Time will tell.”
Dion’s own determination has remained fierce. “I’m gonna go back onstage, even if I have to crawl. Even if I have to talk with my hands, I will,” she told Kotb in 2024. In a March 30 social media video marking her 58th birthday, she announced the Paris return, saying, “I’m getting the chance to see you, to perform for you once again in Paris beginning in September this year.”
The Paris La Défense Arena shows represent the fulfillment of a promise deferred twice—first by pandemic, then by disease.