Celine Dion Asked Portrait of Her Dead Husband if She Should Record a New Disney Song. She Got an Answer Back!
More than a year after losing husband René Angélil to throat cancer, the “My Heart Will Go On” singer is sharing that her husband is still with her at virtually every moment.
Whether she is making new music or especially when she is with her three children.
“I think I will probably grieve for the rest of my life,” she says of her fellow Canadian, who was 26 years her senior.
Although, Celine adds with a smile: “Rene has prepared me for all my life since I’m 12.
“I have never met another man in my life, never kissed another man in my life. I miss him a lot. I miss him a lot — for my partner, for the man I was embracing, kissing, making love with. My worries, my dreams . . . ”
Celine is devastated and it seems like there’s a power to the way she is so openly tackling her grief.
She says: “No one chooses to be sick. Life imposes for you to be sick and you have the option to be strong or not be strong. But to be surrounded by the right people helps a lot because, if you know you will die, make the best of it.
“I proved to Rene that he was there for me and I’m going to be there for him — and I’m still there for him.”
René Angélil coped with every aspect of her career, which has seen Celine Dion become the second highest-selling female artist of all time after Madonna, shifting 250million records.
Celine still depends on Rene’s advice. Recently, she was consulting with a portrait of him, painted by a fan, when she was asked to decide whether to record a new song for Disney’s hit Beauty And The Beast remake.
She recalls: “I went and found one of the paintings that one of the fans gave me of my husband and I said, ‘Should I do this?’
“And the answer I got back — I don’t want that to sound like ghostly or anything like that — but emotionally what I got back from that was, ‘You have nothing to lose’.”
It’s been seven years since Celine last gave an interview to a British newspaper and she admits she is “stressed” about her return to Europe this summer — her first tour without Rene by her side.
“Touring the world is a big deal when you have three kids and travelling becomes problematic, it’s scary sometimes. It becomes more complex, and the grieving.”