Céline Dion has no intention of letting her health struggles get in the way of her career.
The five-time Grammy winner canceled tour dates in 2022 after being diagnosed with stiff person syndrome (SPS), a rare neurological disorder that can cause shortness of breath and muscle spasms.
“I’m gonna go back onstage, even if I have to crawl,” she told “Today” host Hoda Kotb on Tuesday. “Even if I have to talk with my hands. I will. I will. I am Céline Dion. Because today, my voice will be heard for the first time, not just because I have to, or because I need to.”
“It’s because I want to,” Dion continued. “And I miss it.”
Dion told Kotb that singing with SPS feels “like somebody’s strangling you,” however, and that she had “broken ribs at one point” as the result of spasms.
“It’s been very difficult, very painful, challenging, scary,” Dion said Tuesday. “I could say that it’s like a little cold starting or just, because they push too much [and] it’s the third show in a row, [but] it was different, to feel like the body was getting more rigid.”
Dion was on tour in Germany in 2008 when she noticed her first symptoms. She recalled feeling “panic” after being unable to reach certain pitches during rehearsals and, not wanting to “disappoint” her fans, opted to sing in a lower register before ending the show early.
The singer eventually started treating her symptoms with prescription medications.
“I did not know, honestly, that it could kill me,” she told Kotb. “I would take, like, for example, before a performance, 20 milligrams of Valium, and then just walking from my dressing room to backstage, [it] was gone already.”
Dion said her growing tolerance eventually led her to take up to 90 mg per day.
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The singer said she’s determined to forge ahead, however, as her children “already lost a parent” when her husband, René Angélil, died of throat cancer in 2016.
“Trying to overcome this autoimmune disorder has been one of the hardest experiences of my life, but I remain determined to one day get back onto the stage and to live as normal of a life as possible,” she wrote in March. “I am deeply grateful for … all of you!”
A documentary on her journey, “I Am: Céline Dion,” hits Amazon Prime Video on June 25.