Céline Dion’s husband and manager, René Angélil, passed away in 2016 after years of battling cancer, but the musician says she is “still married to Réne.”
“He’s still my husband,” she told People in an interview published this week. She said she sees signs from Angélil “all the time.”
After years of rarely being seen in public, Dion has been opening up about her most personal struggles, sharing details about her health and how it has impacted her work, her family, and her outlook in support of a new documentary about her, I Am: Céline Dion, which premieres on Amazon Prime on June 25.
Dion has been diagnosed with the rare neurological disorder Stiff Person Syndrome, which causes violent and uncontrollable muscle spasms and has rendered the Grammy winner unable to sing. Earlier this year, she told French Vogue that she’s actively working against her condition: “five days a week I undergo athletic, physical, and vocal therapy,” she said. “I work on my toes, my knees, my calves, my fingers, my singing, my voice… I have to learn to live with it now and stop questioning myself.”
Dion told People that she keeps fighting for her three sons, René-Charles, 23, and 13-year-old twins Nelson and Eddy.
“I barely could walk at one point, and I was missing very much living,” Dion told People of her early symptoms. “My kids started to notice. I was like, ‘OK, they already lost a parent. I don’t want them to be scared. I let them know, ‘You lost your dad, [but] mom has a condition and it’s different. I’m not going to die. It’s something that I’m going to learn to live with.”
Dion said that the family has reminders of Angélil everywhere. “We have pictures, of course, all over the place in the house,” she said. She recalled her husband’s final days, and how they spent time as a family.
“Even when they were very small, even when he was still with us in his bed [when he was] in his room struggling, he was with us still,” she said. “[Our sons would tell him], ‘Dad, we’re going to be watching Ratatouille tonight, so I hope you like it.’ They were talking to him, and they kiss the pictures.”
They also remind her to bring “Papa’s pictures” when they’re packing for trips, not that she ever forgets, Dion said. The photos also accompany the singer to medical treatments too, she shared.
“He’s their dad, and he’s my husband, and he will always be,” she said.
Asked why she allowed the very intimate documentary to be produced, Dion said, “I want my fans to know another ‘song’ of mine.”
“My fans who know me well know not all [my] songs are happy, but they are true. And this is a song that is very honest, and a song that I own,” she continued. “I miss my fans tremendously, and I hope that what they see [in the film encourages them] to speak out. Don’t suffer alone.”
