Celine Dion suspected something was wrong with her for a long time. But it wasn't until she publicly shared her diagnosis with the rare neurological condition Stiff Person Syndrome in 2022 that the singer finally felt like she'd cleared up her health struggles. In the latest preview of an upcoming NBC primetime show in which Dion discusses her health issues, the Canadian singer says. Today's show's Hoda Kotb that she knew it was time to be more transparent.
“I couldn't do it anymore,” Dion says of the burden of not telling her fans and the public the secret she was carrying in the first interview after her diagnosis. “What do you want me to say? I have… what? We didn't know what was going on,” the singer says. “I didn't take time. I should have stopped. Take time to understand that… and my husband was fighting for his life. I had to grow up my children. I had to try to be a hero. I feel my body leaving me. And the lie for me was too much.”
More specifically, Dion says, lying to “the people who brought me to where I am today” was intolerable.
In an earlier preview, Dion described the excruciating pain she's endured from the rare condition, saying it feels like “someone's strangling you… It's like someone's pushing down your larynx/pharynx like that [raises voice]. It was like you talk like that and you can't go higher or lower. He goes into convulsions.”
Dion, 56, told Kotb that the spasms caused by the disorder sometimes became so severe that at one point she broke a rib. The condition can cause uncontrollable muscle spasms that make movement difficult and forced Dion to cancel her 2023 tour after her sister revealed the singer had “no control” over her muscles. Her difficult road to managing the disease is the subject of the upcoming documentary I am: Celine Dionwhich will debut on Prime Video on June 25.
The singer also tells Kotb that she initially started having trouble controlling her voice after noticing symptoms in 2008, saying she initially thought things would be “fine.” But then muscle spasms and stiffness in her arms and legs became more apparent, and she realized something serious was going on with the chronic, progressive disease that can be treated with medication.
The full interview will air during a one-hour special on NBC on Tuesday (June 11) at 10 p.m. ET.
Watch Dion on Broadcast today below.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/pop/celine-dion-talks-going-public-stiff-person-syndrome-diagnosis-prime-time-interview-preview-1235705603/
