Celine Dion revealed that she took up to 90 milligrams of Valium a day while suffering from then-undiagnosed stiff-person syndrome during a one-hour NBC News special.
“Ninety milligrams of Valium can kill you,” Celine said during the show titled Celine’s Story with Hoda Kotb.
The Grammy Award-winning singer, 56, spoke to Hoda, 59, in her first television interview since she was diagnosed with stiff person syndrome, a rare neurological disease. During the rare one-on-one conversation, Celine shared with Hoda how she finally figured out what was causing her throat to close up and spasm.
Celine said that the song that defines where she was now was Courage.
“It wasn’t true,” Celine said. “It wasn’t right.”
‘Celine Dion revealed that she took up to 90 milligrams of Valium a day while suffering from then-undiagnosed stiff-person syndrome during a one-hour NBC News special.
Hoda then shared how four years ago Celine’s world-famous performances came to a “painful stop.”
“I didn’t know who I was anymore because I’m not the person I used to be,” Celine said. “I was not Celine Dion. ‘
Hoda explained that Celine was suffering from a debilitating illness.
“I have been diagnosed with a very rare neurological disorder,” Celine said.
Celine has not performed in public since March 2020 and has remained out of sight raising her three children, but she had also been filming a new Amazon Prime documentary about her health battle titled simply ‘I Am Celine Dion.’
Hoda asked her after watching the documentary what life has been like for her.
“It’s been very difficult, very painful, challenging and scary,” said Celine, dressed in a white suit. ‘I spent my entire life in the music industry being a performer and loving every moment. This passion will never go away. And one day, while I was on tour because I never stopped. I started to feel different. “It was like my voice was spasming.”
She revealed that she started having these spasms 17 years ago and then her little “cold-like symptoms” gradually got worse. She told Hoda about one particular night.
She revealed that she started having these spasms 17 years ago and then her little ‘cold-like symptoms’ gradually got worse.
“I’ve been diagnosed with a very rare neurological disorder,” Celine told Hoda.
Celine offered a candid look to the show about how she’s dealing with stiff person syndrome
Celine has not performed in public since March 2020 and has remained out of sight raising her three children, but she had also been filming a new Amazon Prime documentary about her health battle titled simply ‘I Am Celine Dion.’
Celine is shown celebrating her 1,000th show at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas in October 2016.
“I was on the Taking Chances world tour,” Celine said. ‘I was in Germany and I was fine and I had breakfast and then my voice started to rise… then I felt like I couldn’t control it… I couldn’t control anything. I had to take a plane to go to the next city. I got to the locker room and started doing my vocal exercises. Then I went up… and then I couldn’t go back up.’
Celine then thought ‘if you go up you better look carefully because you’re only going up once tonight… but I have 23, 25 songs to sing’.
‘So what happened?’ Hoda said.
“I had to find a way,” Celine said. ‘I was squeezed. So I said I was only going to do two songs. I usually sing for almost an hour or 45 minutes for sound check.’
A concert film captured Celine complaining to a doctor about her voice. She then told the doctor that her main problem was her neck and that she couldn’t relax it so she couldn’t relax her vocal cords.
“So I can’t exercise my voice well,” Celine said.
Hoda asked him what happened to his voice when he tried to sing.
“It’s like someone is strangling you,” Celine said. “It’s like someone is pushing your larynx here.”
“It’s like someone is strangling you,” Celine said. “It’s like someone is pushing your larynx here.”
Hoda was emotional when Celine shared her story.
Celine described her voice becoming strained. Ella Celine said at first that she thought it was because she had been working too much.
“But that thing was, it was different,” Celine said. “It was more jerky than cold.”
Celine, who won the Eurovision song contest at age 20 and sold more than 200 million records, spoke about her beginnings in the music business.
“When I started my career, I was at the top of the ladder,” Celine said. ‘My head was in the cloud. I was looking at the sunset and the stars and the rainbow and looking down.’
He shared that on that 2008 tour he began to lose control of his instruments.
“I was very, very scared,” Celine said. ‘Just before going on stage I asked my sound engineer: ‘I don’t know if I can do the show.’ I do not know what is happening”. And then you panic and the more you panic, the more you twitch.
“I was very, very scared,” Celine said. ‘Just before going on stage I asked my sound engineer: ‘I don’t know if I can do the show.’ I don’t know what’s going on.” And then you panic and the more you panic, the more you twitch.
The sound guy didn’t know what to do.
“The power went out and I went on stage and started sounding more nasal,” Celine said.
Hoda said as Celine’s voice continued to shake.
“I was trying to compensate and find another way to have a voice,” Celine said. “So we turned the song down a little bit with the keys.”
Celine said she thought that was a smart thing to do and then said she started looking for a tunnel to make it a little narrower.
“And project more nasal and hopeful,” Celine said.
Hoda shared that sometimes when Celine’s voice wasn’t working properly, she would pretend her microphone was broken and other nights she would rely on the audience to help her sing.
“I was trying to survive,” Celine said. “She I let people sing with me a lot.”
“I was trying to compensate and find another way to have a voice,” Celine said. ‘So we lowered the song a little bit with the keys’
Celine said: ‘I had to lie.’ We didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t take the time. I should have stopped. Take the time to figure it out. ‘My husband was also fighting for his own life.’
Five years after her first symptoms appeared, her husband and manager René Angelil began to suffer from cancer for the second time. Hoda said Celine put a lot of her life on hold to be with him.
“I had to hide,” Celine said. “I had to try to be a hero. I became a nurse. I became her supporter. I had to protect my children. Practice my passion. Feeling my body abandoning me. Holding on to my own dreams. But if I have dreams, what’s happening, I can’t sing.’
René died in 2016 at the age of 59 and two days later, Celine’s 73-year-old brother Daniel also died of cancer.
The singer appears with her husband René in May 2008 in Paris.
“At that moment, my brain, my personality, was the show that had to go on,” Celine said. ‘Regardless of your pain and your struggle.’
Celine said her symptoms began to worsen and she could feel her body becoming stiffer. She said that every time she went to see a doctor she hoped he would be able to diagnose her and tell her what she had.
“Tell me there’s something wrong with me because I’m going to have to make some big decisions here,” Celine said.
Celine said she tried a lot of things.
“Trying too many things when you don’t know what you have can kill you,” Celine said.
Within weeks of her husband’s death, she returned to Caesars Palace and even replaced Hoda on the Today show that summer. She said her symptoms began to worsen and she even began to faint.
“I would lose him for two hours without knowing it,” Celine said. “Then you have a hard time walking and you go blank for two hours.”
Celine said she tried a lot of things to move forward. She shared that she began taking high doses of Diazepam, commonly known as Valium, to control her symptoms and relax her muscles.
“I didn’t want to stop acting,” Celine said. “I would take, for example, that before a performance 20 milligrams of Valium just walking from my dressing room to backstage was already gone.”
—So your body got used to it? Hoda said.
Hoda said Celine said she took up to 90 milligrams a day.
“90 milligrams of Valium can kill you,” Celine said.
At the end of the episode, Celine sang for Hoda, who asked her if her voice had returned to 100 percent.
“Not 100 percent back, but 100 percent,” Celine said.
Hoda asked Celine if she had a message for her fans.
Celine at the end of the episode sang for Hoda, who asked her if her voice was back to 100 percent.
‘I want you to come see me again. I would like to invite you to sing with me again. You have supported me for so many years. Sometimes I thought maybe they forgot, you know?’ Celine said.
He later sang the upbeat song Be Happy while playing air guitar.
“Tomorrow, I’ll sing for you tomorrow while the drone is there,” Celine sang, pointing to a drone used for the footage.
Hoda thanked Celine for her candor and humor.