Amid her ongoing battle with Stiff Person Syndrome, Céline Dion returned to the stage for an epic performance at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
The singer’s performance at the opening ceremonies for the 2024 Olympics on Friday marks her first performance since halting her worldwide tour and stepping back from public life after revealing her diagnosis with Stiff Person Syndrome in December 2022.
Following the lighting of the amazing hot air balloon-inspired Olympic Cauldron, Dion appeared perched regally on the first level of the Eiffel Tower. She looked stunning in a crystal-studded ensemble as she performed an iconic French ballad, “Hymne A L’Amour” by Édith Piaf with the help of a full orchestra.
ET spoke with neurology specialist Dr. Duarte Machado prior to Dion’s comeback performance, who dubbed her return to the stage “extraordinary.”
“Given that just a month and a half ago, she was on national television with her interview to discuss the difficulties that she’s been having… to get to this point of being able to be on a global stage now once again, and and sing at the opening ceremony, it is quite notable,” he marveled, “and a victory, really, for anyone with chronic condition — especially those with SPS — that with perseverance and the right medical care, that such victories can come true.”
Variety was first to report the news, sharing that Dion had arrived in Paris ahead of the festivities, but no details about her performance were made public at the time.
The singer’s show-stopping turn on stage was a full-circle moment nearly 30 years in the making, as Dion opened the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, with a performance of her song “The Power of the Dream.”
However, there have been several hints that Dion would make her Olympic return in 2024. She voiced a French-language promo for Team Canada back in April 2024, highlighting several of the country’s top competitors, like basketball star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, swimmer Maggie Mac Neil and gymnast Ellie Black.
Dion also told Vogue France in April 2024 that one of her goals was “to see the Eiffel Tower again,” and hinted to Today’s Hoda Kotb in her June 2024 interview that she would be getting back on stage soon — she just couldn’t say when.
Dion’s interview with Kotb aired just before the premiere of her recent documentary, I Am: Celine Dion, in which she got candid on camera about the trials she’s faced since her diagnosis.
The singer shared that, for her, Stiff Person Syndrome first presented itself in her throat — locking up the muscles in a way that made it feel “like somebody is strangling you” when she tried to sing. It has also caused spasms in her abdomen, spine, ribs and limbs, with Dion noting that the ailment can manifest itself by locking her limbs in certain positions, for example, when cooking or pointing her toes.
The spasms have even gotten so bad, on occasion, that the singer has suffered from broken ribs. But perhaps an even greater pain for the singer, came from keeping her condition a secret. Dion told Kotb she felt she was “lying to the people who got me where I am today,” adding that there came a time when “I could not do it anymore.”
“I should have stopped, take the time to figure it out,” she lamented. “I had to raise my kids. I had to hide. I had to try to be a hero. Feeling my body leaving me, holding onto my own dreams. And the lying for me was – the burden was like too much.”
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