Cline Dion on her health issues and plans for a comeback: 'I will sing again'

"When this whole thing started, if you put yourself in my shoes,I didn't have a [diagnosis]," sayspop icon ClineDion.

It is spring in Las Vegas, and she's speaking to CBC News chief correspondentAdrienne Arsenault in an exclusive English Canadian interview. The topic that brought them together is, of course, what she is referring to now: the health issues that went from benign annoyancesto debilitating attacks that causedher career to come to a screeching halt.

"I was trying to, what, survive through this. I was trying to be brave. Because, all my life, I wanted to be the best of me."

The diagnosis Dioneventually received, and subsequently shared withthe world in December 2022, was stiff-person syndrome (SPS) a rare autoimmune disorder that inhibits theability to move and, more importantly to Dion, use your voice.

It was an earth-shattering discovery for the musician who's won five Grammys and20Juno awards. And after first rescheduling, then cancelling her planned Courage world tour in 2023, she stepped away somewhat from her public life focusing on managing the symptoms of a disease without a cure.

WATCH | Cline Dion on how SPS affectsher voice:

Cline Dion on how stiff person syndrome impacts her voice

3 months ago

Duration 0:52

Cline Dion tells CBC chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault about how stiff person syndrome caused her to lose control of her voice and that several specialists were unable to figure out what was going on.

'More spasm, more cramping'

This interview is part of the My Heart Will Go On singer's return both ahead of a June 25 documentary, I Am: ClineDion that details her life and health struggles, and as an overdue explanation and apology she feels she owes her fans.

Because while she publicly announcedthat she had been diagnosed with SPSless than two years ago, Dion revealed to CBCher own realizationthat her voice was beginning to falter happenedyears earlier.

"At the beginning it was, totally, something light," she says, describing the 2008 Taking Chances world tour where she first started to lose control of the pitch of her voice the tone at times shooting up in a way she compared to yodelling.

Those performances went alright: a mild issue written off as possibly a cold. But instead of improving, things quickly started to spiral.

"With the weeks and the months and the years, things started to get more, more often every day, worse," she explains. "The body started to get rigid, not flexible, more spasm, more cramping."

What followed was a decade and a half of worsening symptoms, confused doctors, improvised workarounds and, she says, family obligations and tragedies that kept her from taking a moment to breathe.

As the muscle spasms, stiffness and pain typical of SPS worsened, Dion and her team devised strategies to hide their impact.

They lowered thekey of certain songs,omitted other songsand, she says,she adjusted the way she sang instead of the relaxed, powerful tone she was known for, she required more effort and a more nasal toneto reach the heights that once came easily.

WATCH | Cline Dion: The full interview with CBC News chief correspondentAdrienne Arsenault:

Cline Dion: I Will Sing Again

3 months ago

Duration 44:10

In this intensely personal, candid and revealing exclusive from the team at The National, Cline Dion opens up to CBC News chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault about coping with stiff person syndrome, losing the voice that has guided her life and how she is determined to perform again. [I Am: Celine Dion, the documentary featured in this interview, premieres June 25 on Prime Video.]

'I had to be brave'

Meanwhile, she was seeing numerous specialists, including ear, nose, throat (ENT) doctors, who would examine her vocal chords and find no nodes or polyps, and send her on her way.

"I went to see every ENT around the world," she says. "As many shows as I've done, I've seen as many ENT. And they couldn't see anything. There was nothing."

• Do you have thoughts on Cline Dion's latest interview? Join the discussion in thecomments or send an email toask@cbc.ca.

At the same time, she was taking care of her three sons and nursing her husband, Ren Anglil, a singer himself whowas first diagnosed with throat cancer in 1998. Hedied in 2016 after several recurrences. Thetwin sons they had together are now 13 and equipped with panic buttons and training forwhat to doif they see theirmother in a medical emergency.

And all the while, she continued to perform.

"I had to be very brave. Instead of smart," she says. "That was my thing."

WATCH | Cline Dion: 'I couldn't live with the lie':

Cline Dion: I couldnt live with the lie

3 months ago

Duration 1:36

Cline Dion tells CBC chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault about how she navigated her early symptoms of stiff person syndrome on stage.

But eventually, it became too much to hide. She had episodes that could be triggered by crowds, lights, noise and even strong positive emotions: all necessary elements of a ClineDion concert.

That led to what she describes as "lying, for so many years."Her shows would be rescheduled or cancelled for everything from tonsillitis to sinus infections.

And then, finally, an answer when she announced thatshe'd been diagnosed with stiff-person syndrome.

Knowing the name of the condition that had plagued her for the better part of two decades was something of a relief an escape from the "black hole" of an unknown diagnosis that weighed on her constantly, because, she says,"living in the dark, it's worse than dying."

WATCH |Cline Dion vows,'I will sing again':

Cline Dion says I will sing again

3 months ago

Duration 1:12

Cline Dion is determined to sing again. In a Canadian English-language exclusive, she told CBC chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault about battling the disease slowly eroding her voice and the fans who fuel her drive to someday return to the stage.

A brighter outlook

But it was also a sorrow the combined realization that she would forever have the disease, and the terrifying question of whether she would ever sing professionally again.

But speaking to CBC, she says the outlook is brighter now. There is constant rehabilitation, tweaks to themedication that has increasingly helped her manage her illness and the mantra helping her along: "I'll sing again. That's for sure."

This interviewand the upcoming documentary are,she says, her way of declaring that. Not only to herself, but to the fans she invited to sing along with her.

"When I present the microphone, it's because they're part of me. I was 12years old when I met them. I probably miss them more than singing itself," she says.

"People need to know that I'm aliveI want to go back on stage. I need to know if I can. They need to know that I love them, and I miss them."

Celine Dion's full conversation with CBC News is available on Gem and YouTube, and will broadcast Thursday evening on The National and on CBC Television Friday night at 8 p.m. ET.

Thefeature documentaryI Am: Cline Dionpremieres June 25 on Prime Video.