Celine’s power of love
The singer hits a high note after tragedy
Since her first public performance at the age of five, in her parents’ piano bar in Quebec, superstar Celine Dion has been showered with praise and awards for her powerful stage presence and her spectacular three-octave vocal range.
Yet despite five Grammys and her title as one of the best-selling musical artists of all time, the Canadian singer – who turns 50 this week – insists her children are her greatest achievement.
“What makes me most proud is to be a mother,” Celine says of son René-Charles, 17, and seven-year-old twins Eddy and Nelson from her 21-year marriage to late husband René Angélil. “My kids give me the balance to live right.”
Two years after René’s death, they still miss him terribly, but “The Power of Love” singer is able to keep it together as she knows she has to stay strong for her family.
“Celine will never take the place of the boys’ father, but she’s doing her best to make life as happy and settled for them as possible,” a source close to the star tells Woman’s
Day. “When she sees their smiling faces and hears them laugh, she knows she’s doing something right. They’re helping to heal her heartbreak.
“Although they’re grown now, the kids still sometimes sleep with their mum in her huge bed. They’ll spend nights watching TV together, then all fall asleep together. Celine is also dedicated to taking René-Charles to his ice-hockey games, and she’s fostering a love of singing and acting in the twins. She thinks they’ve got a career in showbiz ahead of them, but she’s not a pushy mum.” Despite her estimated $550 million fortune, Celine leads a relatively low-key life. For the diva’s milestone birthday next week, our source says they’ll have cake and the boys will give their mum homemade cards, then she’ll enjoy a meal out with her girlfriends. She’ll also take a private moment to pay tribute to music producer René, who had been her rock ever since she was 12 and he mortgaged his family home to finance her first album. In 1988, at the age of 46, he divorced his second wife, singer Anne Renée, then 38, and entered a romantic relationship with Celine, who was 20 years old. Despite the scandalous age gap, in 1994 the pair married in a lavish Montreal ceremony broadcast live on Canadian TV.
“He’s the love of my life,” said Celine. “The love that I have for him, I live it every day.” However, their marriage wasn’t without its challenges, including a heartbreaking battle with infertility.
Celine confessed, “Réne and I had our tough times. We had tension. It’s never easy being husband and wife, but add to that the fact we’re in business together, dealing with all the added pressures of shows, concerts, tours, travelling ... It was a lot of hard work.”
A hard goodbye
Harder still was René’s battle with throat cancer. In September 2015, the family was told he had just months to live. He passed away in January 2016, just two days before his 74th birthday.
In his final moments, Celine lay in bed with her husband and told him, “You were worrying for my career. You were worrying for the children. You were worrying for everything. Trust me. I promise you we’re gonna be OK. Please leave in peace.”
After he passed away, she and her children went outside to release balloons in a tribute to their father, inspired by the Disney movie Up. At the funeral, in a dramatic black veil, Celine stood for hours personally greeting mourners. Just a month later, she resumed her Las Vegas residency.
“My career was, in a way, his masterpiece, his song, his symphony,” she says. “The idea of leaving it unfinished would have hurt him terribly.
I realised that if he ever left us, I would have to continue without him, for him.”
Celine made sure his spirit was with her by having a gold-covered cast of her husband’s hand made, so she could continue her nightly tradition of placing her palm in his before every show. No doubt she will continue this ritual when she performs in New Zealand for the first time in more than 20 years in August.
More recently, when asked to record a new song for the live-action remake of Beauty
and the Beast, Celine consulted a portrait of René, painted by one of her fans, asking it, “Should I do this?” She recalls, “I don’t want it to sound too ghostly, but emotionally, the answer I got back was, ‘You have nothing to lose.’”
Despite multiple rumours of new romances, Celine insists she can’t imagine a time when she won’t be too consumed with grief to find a new partner.
“René has prepared me for all my life since I was 12,” she explains. “I have never met another man in my life, never kissed another man in my life. I miss him a lot as my partner, the man I was embracing, kissing and making love with.”