For 17 years
Céline Dion admits it while crying: she lied, she has kept quiet about this problem since 2008. She ignored the signals sent by her body. because it hides nothing of what the artist endures with the stiff man syndrome from which she suffers. The first effects of the neurological disease, which affects one in two million people, were felt a little over seventeen years ago. It started with vocal cord spasms. “One morning, after breakfast, my voice was higher,” she says, adding that the day after a concert is not normal.
The months, the years pass. The symptoms intensify. “I had reached a point where I could no longer walk, I was losing my balance,” confides the singer who tries to “not let anything show”. In concert, she has her parades: she turns the microphone towards the audience so as not to have to sing or she taps on it, making it seem like a technical problem. “I don’t want to lie anymore,” she says.
Too much Valium
She lets Irene Taylor film her during a terrible attack of spasms. His legs, his hands, then his whole body stiffen. On the ground, she cowers. His eyes are haggard, lifeless. She moans, cries then screams in pain. The sequence is violent. At the beginning of 2020, doses of Valium became dangerous for the singer. “At 90 ml per day, I could have died,” she explains. Finally, the Covid pandemic came at the right time for her, forced to stop.
“It’s the worst thing I’ve ever filmed,” admits Irene Taylor in Le Parisien. I was so uncomfortable, panicked. I was all alone with the doctor and the cameraman in the room, I had headphones on and I could barely hear his breathing. It lasted for forty minutes before she regained consciousness. »
Parts of intimate life revealed
Céline Dion also recounts her long fight against this syndrome which prevents her from returning to the stage. “I am an apple tree. And people are lining up for apples. The branches are falling, there are fewer apples, but there are still people waiting in line, she whispers. And I don’t want them to keep waiting in line if I don’t have apples to give them,” she says. The film also features archival footage of the world-famous singer but offers joyful moments with her children. No matter the pain, anxiety or fatigue, the star plans nothing other than to sing again.
“I’m not dead,” said the Canadian Monday evening in New York, during the premiere of this documentary. “My passion for the stage will never die. » She especially hopes that the film will encourage people suffering from the same syndrome: “I feel that I still have a lot of support and a lot of love and I hope that this documentary will help, because it helped me a lot, even if it’s a fight forever, one day at a time. »
