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As the sun sets behind the mountains in an exclusive neighborhood 30 minutes from the Las Vegas Strip, I hear a recognizable voice singing behind a closed door.
His security guard guarding the hotel suite nods.
I’m about to interview a music megastar, and it looks like she’s in a good mood.
But the iconic voice I hear casually singing is the one fans feared they’d never hear again.
“I was diagnosed with a very rare neurological disorder.”
After this devastating announcement, Celine Dion withdrew from the remainder of her world tour and has rarely been seen in public since.
Signs of problems
The medical name for its little-known condition is stiff person syndrome (SPS), a neurological condition that causes muscle spasms.
As we sit down to chat, Céline says it went undiagnosed for years.
The 56-year-old actress describes the distress she felt as a performer when she began noticing changes in her voice on tour.
“It was just a bit of a strange feeling, like a little spasm,” the Canadian star said.
“My voice was struggling, I was starting to push a little.”
She demonstrates the subtle difference by singing the opening bars of her 1993 hit The Power of Love, showing how she had to force her voice to hold notes that once came more easily.
From time to time, she would ask the conductor of her backing musicians to put certain songs into a key for a few performances.
“I needed to find a way to be on stage,” she explains.
She hoped that singing a little lower might give her voice a chance to recover.
Image source, Amazon MGM Studios
The public would never have known the struggle she faced behind the scenes.
But Céline says that at the time, it seemed impossible to take time off.
“These shows sold out for a year and a half, touring the world.
“And I’ll say to people, ‘Excuse me for my spasms? Excuse me for my I don’t know what?‘”
She put enormous pressure on herself to keep the show on the road, not understanding the cause of the symptoms she was experiencing.
But it all became too difficult.
His final diagnosis made him understand that it was not fatigue related to the tour. It was permanent.
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PSS is an autoimmune disease that can be debilitating. There is no known cure.
This is because the signals sent by the nerves to the muscles are not working properly.
During a particularly bad episode, the spasms may be so intense that she can barely move.
But after receiving a proper diagnosis, she now knows much more about this disease, which can be managed.
“My goal is to pitch in and raise money to raise awareness and find a cure. That would be amazing,” she says.
During her absence from the stage, Céline learned to adapt through medication, physiotherapy and the help of experts like Dr. Amanda Piquet.
“Now this disease is becoming more and more public knowledge, it is in the public eye,” says Dr. Piquet.
Dr. Piquet treated a number of patients who had also gone undiagnosed for years.
She hopes the publicity gained from Céline’s speech about her fight against the disease will help others.
“We need to do a better job of diagnosing this disease,” says Dr. Piquet. “When we do, it will lead to more clinical trials and more approved treatments.”
She says that although Céline will live with the disease for the rest of her life, the therapy she is undergoing to ease the muscle spasms will help her sing on stage again.
“My voice will be rebuilt,” says Céline. “I mean, it already started a while ago. My voice is rebuilding itself as we speak, right now.”
New Vegas Show
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Fans will be able to see how the singer’s health issues affected her life in a new documentary called I Am: Celine Dion.
She finally sees a way to return to the stage and prepares for a new show in Las Vegas.
“We worked really hard to put this show together, because I’m back,” she says with a huge smile.
It’s clear that he missed performing on stage terribly.
“I’ll be on stage. I don’t know when exactly, but believe me, I’ll shout it out loud.
Celine holds the record for the most successful residency of all time on the Las Vegas Strip. She is extremely proud of her career, but the time away has given her the opportunity to reflect.
After years of traveling the world, she realizes that she has seen very little of it.
There’s “a price to pay” for always being in touring mode while traveling, she says.
“All my days off, I wanted to be ready for the next show. I went around the world and didn’t see much.
“But as a performer and singer, I received so much love from fans.”
Ballads of the Queen of Power
My first memory of Celine Dion was one of our high school teachers playing her single Pour Que Tu M’aimes Encore on cassette in an attempt to inspire our French studies.
She is best known to the public as the queen of power ballads.
Their 90s hits like The Power of Love and It’s All Coming Back to Me Now are instantly recognizable by their soaring vocals.
But at the height of her health problems, Céline admits to feeling a little envious of the breathy, “whispered” style used by some modern female artists.
Singers like Billie Eilish and Lana Del Rey are having big hits at the other end of the volume spectrum.
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“I was like, well, should I go to bed really, really late at night and start smoking?” she jokes.
“I was jealous. I was like, They’re going out, they’re partying, they’re barely cleaned and they’re awesome.”
This contrasts with the strict diet she stuck to for much of her career.
“I was like, don’t talk or eat that, it’s too much dairy, it’ll produce phlegm.”
She continues to joke that maybe she’ll throw her classical training out the window and adopt a new, raucous-tongued persona.
“And that, for a concert?” said Céline, winking at the camera.
She manages to maintain a sense of humor despite her ongoing health battles.
But whatever style she chooses, fans will be extremely happy to see her again.
I Am: Céline Dion will be released on Amazon Prime Video on June 25, and her long interview with Emma Vardy will be visible on BBC iPlayer