Gerrard Kaonga
Footage of Céline Dion revealing the first symptoms of Stiff Person Syndrome has been unearthed in one of her old documentaries.
In 2022, the 'Heart Will Go On' singer revealed that she'd been diagnosed with an incurable autoimmune neurological disease called stiff-person syndrome (SPS) in an emotional video posted to Instagram.
And footage from her 2010 documentary, Céline: Through the Eyes of the World, the singer is seen complaining of vocal ‘spasms’ and ‘cold like symptoms.’
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Earlier this week, the singer confirmed that she had been dealing with the condition behind the scenes before revealing it to the public in 2022.
Speaking in an interview with Today’s Hoda Kotb, she said that the burden of keeping her diagnosis a secret ended up being 'too much'.
"What do you want me to say? I have what? We did not know what was going on. I should've stopped and taken the time to figure out and taken the time like it's not enough." she said.
"My husband as well, was fighting for his own life. I had to raise my kids, I had to hide, I had to try and be a hero, feeling my body leaving me, holding onto my own dreams.
"And lying, for me, the burden was too much. Lying to people who got me where I am today - I could not do it anymore."
Those with SPS experience uncontrollable muscle spasms, and Dion described the symptoms when she is singing as being like 'somebody is strangling you'.
“It’s like somebody is pushing your larynx/pharynx this way,” she said gesturing to herself.
And in the clip from the 2010 documentary, Céline, then 40, is seen speaking to a doctor about her symptoms.
“My main problem now is my neck, I cannot relax my neck so I cannot relax my vocal chords so I cannot vocal exercise well,” she said in the clip.
“My main problem is not that I can't do the highs, I'm spasming, my eyebrows are spasming, my ears. I tell you I'm gonna flip soon, I'm telling you.”
She also spoke with her team while on tour about her ongoing struggles.
“To make a long story short, by the time I went to the meet and greet my breathing was too rapid, I was spasmed up too much, I couldn't finish a phrase,” Céline said.
“The show has not started yet, I was saying hello to people and I couldn't breathe, I went on with the show
“And when I sang "I drove all night for the first time" it was [out of tune] "I drove all night" right there. Yesterday night after doing everything I was spitting out mucus.”
She then tells her dancers that she's having a 'really a hard time right now'.
The 'Ashes' singer has not performed much in the public since 2019, but has been working on an upcoming Amazon Prime documentary about her health struggles entitled: I Am: Céline Dion, which will be released this month.