Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Celine takes to wearing outlandish outfits and still speaks to her dead husband... what’s going on with her?
74th birthday, hit Celine hard. She was “too devastated” to attend the funeral of brother Daniel Dion, who died from throat cancer just two days after Celine’s husband.
She said: “Rene has prepared me for all my life since I was 12. I have never kissed another man. I miss him a lot.” Celine wore a black dress and veil for Rene’s funeral at Notre-dame Basilica in Montreal, Canada, where they had exchanged vows 22 years earlier.
But now she is expressing herself through her clothes in a whole new way. And she has even hired celebrity stylist Law Roach to help with her extreme makeover.
He said: “She credits me and the clothes, and shoes and bags and jewellery, and all that to helping her through her grieving.”
Roach told how Celine has a wardrobe “packed full of designer shoes, Hermes bags in every colour, and samples from her upcoming fashion collection”.
Lucy, from radio station LBC, adds: “Part of me wonders if Celine has watched Rene die and thought, ‘You can’t take all that money with you, I might as well have a lot of fun with it’.”
Celine’s fashion sense is not the only thing that has changed. She was previously averse to tattoos but has talked about having her husband’s heartbeat inked on her body.
She has also sought refuge in her work, performing for at least two hours a night, five or six times a week. In October, she told a Caesars Palace crowd in Las Vegas she can still feel her husband’s presence. She explained: “My wonderful husband is here tonight with us. I am so sure.”
And on the first anniversary of his death, she posted on Facebook: “My heart keeps calling you. I know you can hear me. And I hear you, too.”
Celine even turned to her husband’s portrait for advice over whether to record How Does A Moment Last Forever for the Beauty and The Beast movie, her first new song since his death. Celine said: “I found one of the paintings a fan gave me and I said, ‘Should I do this?’ And the answer I got – and I don’t want that to sound ghostly – but emotionally what I got back from that was, ‘You’ve nothing to lose’.”