Tearful Celine Dion Reveals Diagnosis Of Rare, Incurable Disorder

In a video shared on her Instagram, Celine Dion tearfully revealed to her fans that she has been diagnosed with an incredibly rare and sadly incurable neurological disorder called Stiff Person Syndrome (SPS).

In the clip, the 54-year-old Canadian singer states how she has "always been an open book" but wasn't ready to say anything until now. She goes on to reveal how she has had health issues for a long time but finally has the diagnosis, which she explains affects "something like one in a million people." She says we are still learning about the disease but it is responsible for "all of the spasms" she's been having, adding that the spasms affect every aspect of her life, making it difficult to walk and unfortunately not allowing her to use her vocal chords to sing the way she is used to.

Because of that, she says, "It hurts me to tell you today, this means I won't be ready to restart my tour in Europe in February." Dion notes she has a great team of doctors helping her but states, "It’s been a struggle. All I know is singing. It's what I've done all my life and it's what I love to do the most. I miss you so much. I miss seeing all of you, being out on stage performing for you. I always give 100% when I do my shows but my condition is not allowing me to give you that right now.” Celine says for her to be back on stage, she has to concentrate on her health and has hope she is on the road to recovery.

In a separate video on her Instagram, she goes through the difficult speech a second time, but in French.

Stiff Person Syndrome got its name because it leaves those with it seeming like human statues, locking the body into rigid positions and ultimately leaving its sufferers unable to walk or talk. Even though there is no cure, there are treatments that slow down how the disorder progresses.

At the beginning of the year, health issues caused Celine to cancel the North American dates of her Courage world tour, which were meant to take place in March and April. Before that she scrapped the start of her Vegas comeback residency.

Her Spring 2023 dates have now been rescheduled for 2024 while eight 2023 summer shows have been cancelled.