“I want her to be happy, she has given so much to others, I am happy that she is asking for help,” said host Sonia Benezra, who has interviewed Celine many times during her career and who acted as master of ceremonies at the Théâtre Maisonneuve Monday evening.
“I also find it important, the message she sent in her interview with Jean-Philippe Dion when she told people who are experiencing difficulties not to go through it alone.”
— Host Sonia Benezra
Host Sonia Benezra (Ian Bussieres/The Sun)
For singer Nathalie Simard, Céline Dion’s recent confidences had touched a sensitive point. The one who herself exposed another type of drama, the abuse she suffered at the hands of her former manager, in the book Break the Silence written by Michel Vastel, was happy to see Céline Dion lift the veil on her illness.
“I know it’s going to take a huge weight off his shoulders.”
— Nathalie Simard, who admitted to having been upset by Céline Dion’s recent revelations
“Seeing her break the silence too, it brought me back to my life a little…” added the singer who says she has always admired Celine Dion.
Nathalie Simard (Ian Bussieres/The Sun)
Singer Marie-Élaine Thibert also admitted to having “fell to the ground” after learning more details about the star’s illness. “Since I was very young, I have been singing Celine Dion songs. For me, it’s a force of nature, it’s courage itself,” she said.
Marie-Élaine Thibert (Ian Bussieres/The Sun)
Martine Saint-Clair
For her part, Martine Saint-Clair remembered very well having rubbed shoulders with a young Céline during the Molson Tour with Nanette Workman and Plastic Bertrand in the ’80s. “We passed each other, we looked at each other. I thought, Oh my God, what a voice, it will go far! I also know that she loved what I was doing and that it inspired her. It warmed my heart that she covered my song The Son of Superman», says the one who played the role of Cristal in the rock opera Starmania.
Martine Saint-Clair (Ian Bussieres/The Sun)
“I didn’t do a quarter of what Céline did (in her career) and in 1990, I felt like an athlete who made a big effort when I left Starmania. I just wanted to go home and continue my life,” illustrates the artist who today practices painting without having abandoned singing.
“I imagine what an artist like Céline can sometimes feel!”
— Singer Martine Saint-Clair
Singer Michèle Richard was also present on site and wanted to say how much she had always admired the talent, attitude and energy of Céline Dion, whom she had seen a few times in Las Vegas when the diva was I also went to see her sing in Florida. “I really felt his dismay and pain through his last interviews. All the sacrifices she has overcome… only she knows!” declared with great emotion the woman who is one of the doyennes of the Quebec artistic scene.
The singer Michèle Richard (Ian Bussieres/The Sun)
An accomplice
Finally, for Barnev Valsaint, Céline Dion’s backing vocalist for several years, the revelations of the last few days had a completely different content. Even if he had been an accomplice of the singer on stage and on record, Valsaint, like the public, knew nothing of the details of her illness, of the doses of medication she had taken in order to be able to continue doing her job for 17 years. .
“It really moved me to learn, in her interview with Hoda Kobt, that she had been living with this illness for so long. We (her collaborators) learned what she had at the same time as everyone else, in 2021 when she announced it after receiving a diagnosis. We didn’t know how much pain she was in and how much she had to do to keep going. She wanted to keep it a secret and she did well if that’s what she needed at that time,” he concluded.
Barnev Valsaint (Ian Bussieres/The Sun)
