Dion stands up to cancer to honour late husband
Celine Dion will pay tribute to her late husband by performing at the upcoming Stand Up To Cancer telecast. Celine lost her partner and former manager René Angélil and her brother Daniel to the disease in January, and her brother-in-law, Guy Poirier, is currently fighting cancer, so she has a very special reason to be part of next month’s TV charity drive. The My
Heart Will Go On singer will join country stars Keith Urban and Little Big Town among those performing as part of the telecast, which will air on more than 40 television networks on Sept. 9. The show will be broadcast live from the Music Center’s Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and executive produced by actor Bradley Cooper, who lost his father to cancer in 2011. Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey, Emma Stone, Anna Kendrick, and Ken Jeong have also signed up to appear. “We all have a reason to stand up,” Cooper says. “Stand Up to Cancer is a sustained movement that impacts millions of lives. We honour the personal stories that motivate individuals to fight, and that highlight the urgent need to get new methods of treatment to the patients who so desperately need them.” Meanwhile, Celine Dion’s sister Claudette opened up about her family’s latest cancer drama last week, revealing sibling Liette’s husband is in a care home being treated for the disease, which has spread to his lung, brain and bones. “(My brother-in-law) is at La Maison Adhémar-Dion and he is still conscious,” she told Échos Vedettes magazine. “My sister (Liette) is with him and she is very strong. People of the Maison are angels and they are taking very good care of our stepbrother.” La Maison Adhémar-Dion, named after Celine’s father Adhémar, is a palliative care unit in a suburb outside of Montreal. Adhémar passed away from bone cancer in 2003 and her brother Daniel was also treated at the unit.