Canadian singer Celine Dion has revealed that she secretly battled stiff person syndrome (SPS) for 17 years before publicly disclosing her diagnosis in 2022. The 56-year-old superstar opened up about her struggle with the rare autoimmune neurological disorder during a preview for an upcoming interview with Today Show host Hoda Kotb.
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In the emotional sit-down, Dion shared the immense burden of hiding her condition from her fans and supporters. She described the difficulty of maintaining her public persona while secretly dealing with the debilitating symptoms of SPS, which causes muscles to tense and spasm uncontrollably.
“We did not know what was going on with me,” Dion said, recalling the early days of her symptoms. “I did not take the time… I should have stopped, took the time to figure it out. And like it wasn’t enough, my husband as well was fighting for his own life.” Dion’s husband, René Angélil, passed away from throat cancer in 2016.
Dion explained that after Angélil’s passing, she faced the challenging task of balancing her career, raising her children—René-Charles, 23, and twins Nelson and Eddy, 13—and managing her deteriorating health, all while keeping her condition a secret.
“I had to raise my kids, I had to hide, I had to try to be a hero—while feeling my body leaving me,” she said. “[I was] holding on to my own dreams.”
The singer admitted that lying about her condition eventually became too much to bear. “Lying for me was… The burden was too much. Lying to the people who got me to where I am today, I could not do it anymore,” she confessed.
Despite the challenges, Dion continued to perform up until 2022 when she announced her diagnosis and canceled all upcoming shows. She has since been undergoing intensive therapy to manage her symptoms and remains hopeful about returning to the stage one day.
“I am deeply grateful for the love and support from my kids, family, team, and all of you,” Dion wrote in a March Instagram post honoring International Stiff Person Syndrome Awareness Day. “Trying to overcome this autoimmune disorder has been one of the hardest experiences of my life, but I remain determined to one day get back onto the stage and to live as normal of a life as possible.”
Dion is set to release a tell-all documentary, I Am: Celine Dion, which will provide an in-depth look at her health battle. The documentary will debut on June 25 on Amazon Prime.
