Why Celine Dion Shared Stiff Person Syndrome Diagnosis

Celine Dion has been a open book when it comes to her experience with Stiff Person Syndrome—but it hasn’t always been that way. Speaking with Hoda Kotb in her interview special for Today, the singer revealed that she initially kept the details of her diagnosis a secret, until it started weighing too heavily on her heart.

In the interview, Dion revealed that she started experiencing the first signs of SPS back in 2008, while she was on her Taking Chances World Tour. Her condition would continue to evolve, and she didn’t share her diagnosis with the public until 2022.

Ultimately, the pressure of hiding the illness became too much, as Dion was also dealing with her late husband was undergoing treatment for throat cancer.

“My husband as well was fighting for his own life,” she said. “I had to raise my kids, I had to hide. I had to try to be a hero.”

Some of her fears at the time included “feeling my body leaving me, holding on to my own dreams,” when she was trying to keep a brave face for the media—but it soon became too much for her to deal with.

“I could not do this anymore,” Dion told Kotb of her eventual breaking point. “Lying for me, the burden was too much. Lying to the people who got me where I am today, I could not do it anymore.”

Elsewhere in the televised special, Dion spoke about what the physical effects of SPS is like for her. In addition to spasms causing broken ribs, she explained that attempting to sing with the condition “is like somebody strangling you…It’s like somebody is pushing your larynx and pharynx it gets into a spasm.”

Dion’s full interview special for Today premieres on June 11.