Céline Dion talks beauty secrets with Vogue France: “I'm very proud that at 55, I'm being asked to reveal my beauty”

Released on 11 June 1981, Céline Dion's first single, "Ce n'était qu'un rêve" ("It was only a dream" in English) introduced us to a 13-year-old girl with round cheeks and long brown hair featured on the sleeve. With light makeup applied to her lips and eyelids, the young Quebecoise gazed timidly into the distance. What does she see beyond the infinite horizon? Are her dreams just illusions, as she sings on side A? Does she already know that “L’amour viendra" (“Love will come") as she sings on side B? A mystery. Beneath her name, written in red letters, is a definitive slogan: "A golden voice in a child's heart.” Written and composed with her mother and her brother, "Ce n'était qu'un rêve" was Céline Dion's first step towards stardom. Forty years later, the international star is known by all as The Golden Voice, a supernatural voice that soars over the rooftops of the world. Lonely at the top, Céline Dion can now glance at the rear-view mirror and look back at the path that she has taken. Every stage of her irresistible rise is now known, and seems to have been written like the chapters of a modern fairy tale: from being born in Charlemagne into a modest, music-loving family of 14 children, to the moment that the demo of "Ce n'était qu'un rêve" was sent to the impresario René Angélil, and her meeting with the man who was to become her pygmalion, her husband and the love of her life. Then came her metamorphosis from a teenager to a liberated and sexy young woman, her conquering of America, and her collaboration with Jean-Jacques Goldman who made her a star in France. Of course, the song from Titanic, “My Heart Will Go On,” which propeled her over the rainbow into stardom and transformed her into a global diva, the album, Let’s Talk About Love which reached 31 million copies. Her first pregnancy, her first place in Las Vegas, the tragic death of René, and the national funeral in Montreal, the grief, the powerful comeback to the tune of “The Show Must Go On,” her renaissance as a fashion icon…Then, suddenly, radio silence and questions after a string of canceled dates for a show titled Courage, as if to say that the story couldn’t end there, that Céline Dion’s passion will always move mountains.

Night is falling on Paris, and the sun is rising in Las Vegas. In a white 'out of bed' T-shirt, with her hair hastily pulled back, big glasses and no make-up, Céline Dion appears true to herself on our computer screen: Down to earth, whimsical, funny, a fighter.

My first question is a simple one: how are you?

And the answer is just as simple. I’m well, but it’s a lot of work. I’m taking it one day at a time.

Cover girl for the May 2024 issue of Vogue France, Céline Dion opens up about her stiff-person syndrome, her love of singing and her life as a woman

Vogue France. My first question is a simple one: how are you?

Céline Dion. And the answer is just as simple. I’m well, but it’s a lot of work. I’m taking it one day at a time.

How did you get through this difficult period during which you fought your illness?

I haven’t beat the disease, as it's still within me and always will be. I hope that we'll find a miracle, a way to cure it with scientific research, but for now I have to learn to live with it. So that's me, now with Stiff Person Syndrome. Five days a week I undergo athletic, physical and vocal therapy. I work on my toes, my knees, my calves, my fingers, my singing, my voice... I have to learn to live with it now and stop questioning myself. At the beginning I would ask myself: why me? How did this happen? What have I done? Is this my fault?

Life doesn't give you any answers. You just have to live it! I have this illness for some unknown reason. The way I see it, I have two choices. Either I train like an athlete and work super hard, or I switch off and it’s over, I stay at home, listen to my songs, stand in front of my mirror and sing to myself. I've chosen to work with all my body and soul, from head to toe, with a medical team. I want to be the best I can be. My goal is to see the Eiffel Tower again!

What helps you the most in this fight?

Above all, the love of my family and my children, the love of the fans too, and the support of my team. People who suffer from SPS may not be lucky enough or have the means to have good doctors and good treatments. I have those means, and this is a gift. What's more, I have this strength within me. I know that nothing is going to stop me.

You'll no doubt be back on stage, touring again.

I can't answer that… Because for four years I've been saying to myself that I'm not going back, that I'm ready, that I'm not ready... As things stand, I can't stand here and say to you: "Yes, in four months." I don't know... My body will tell me. On the other hand, I don't just want to wait. It's morally hard to live from day to day. It's hard, I'm working very hard and tomorrow will be even harder. Tomorrow is another day. But there's one thing that will never stop, and that's the will. It's the passion. It's the dream. It's the determination.

When did you first become aware of your voice, and when did you first realise that you would be a singer?

I started performing when I was 5. Did I want to be a singer? I never had time to ask myself that question. Did people come to see me to hear me tell jokes or to hear me sing? I am a singer. I sing in English, in French, I've sung in Mandarin, I've sung in Japanese, in Spanish and in Italian and people have come, they've always come. That, for me, was the proof that I was, and that I am, truly a singer. One thing's for sure, I'll love that feeling until the day I die.

You started out when you were 5 years old, and left school at 15. Do you regret not having had a "normal" childhood?

No, because I don't know what normality is. What is normal? You go to school, you leave school, you're on stage, it's something else, it's sharing with the world, it's emotion, it's thrilling, it's a way of expressing yourself. It was a different kind of school. Did I have any friends? Did I miss out on anything? I never had the time to have all that. So I can't compare. Do I have any regrets? I don't know, I don't know and I don't care because the stage, my family, my children and my songs have taught me everything I know. There's life, school, the arts, emotion, passion, secrets, desires, gifts. People question life all the time. Stop questioning life, we should be living it. It's not always beautiful, but it's here.

How do you see the teenager you were back then?

I'm delighted that it happened. Aren't we all? And I didn't live through it very much because I was very busy. I was already on the ground. I had songs to learn, I couldn't talk about myself. I was deafened: what questions are they going to ask me? And if I don't understand, what am I going to say? So I was nervous, I was scared, scared of the unknown. I didn't have much time to experience life as a teenager. There was no school, I had no friends. I had the stage and my family, I had the best. I didn't want anything else.

In your family, everyone plays an instrument. Has your family always been behind you to encourage you and your career? Were you considered to be the team champion?

No, no, we never made it to the Olympics! My brothers and sisters and I lived in a small house. In the bedrooms upstairs, we slept five or six to a bed. On the ground floor, my mother would be cooking all the time and there was a piano in the cellar. Everyone sang, and everyone played a musical instrument. "Ghislaine, you're on drums. Clément, you pick up the guitar. Denis, you sing." My parents set up a small orchestra. I was very young and I used to go down to the cellar. But my brothers and sisters would come back up and tell Mum: "Come and get Céline, we're trying to rehearse our show and she’s getting in our way, she keeps singing all the time! I wanted to sing with them, but I was too little. I was five years old. Then it was my turn because my brother was getting married. I had to sing two or three well-known Quebec songs. I used to go into the cellar to rehearse too. I was over the moon. Those are some of my fondest memories... The most beautiful memories.

And what was your professional debut like?

My brothers and sisters and I used to go to weddings at the weekend. To get a bit more food on our plates, and so that my mother could make us trousers and crochet our jumpers. My mother has always stood by my side. She was the one who wrote my first song and asked my brother Jacques, who played guitar, to compose the music. I didn't really like the choruses, so I rewrote them and we composed the music with him. We sent a demo to the manager of Ginette Reno, a great artist in Quebec. There was no response. My brother chased him up: "Excuse me, we sent you a demo. My little sister is 12. I know you haven’t heard it yet because if you had, you would have called back right away." Eventually, he listened and requested to meet me. My mother dressed me in her bits of lace, she dyed my shoes and, for the first time in our lives, well mine anyway, we took the bus and the subway. It was as if I were going to New York, as if I were going to the end of the world. I was a bit scared and anxious, so I stuck close to my mother. We went into a building, into a lift, into an office with gold records and a secretary... And then he opened the door. This man, who was very handsome, very well dressed, very classy, asked me: "Can you sing a little bit of the song for me? Singing in front of just one person is worse than performing for a crowd of 20,000. He gave me a pencil and said: "Imagine this is a microphone." "Yes, that'll do!" He wanted to make sure that it was really me singing on the demo. While I was singing, he started crying. That's how I met René.

At that moment, were you dreaming of becoming a star singer?

It happened so quickly... My dream had already started. There was a choir, musicians, managers, writers, my mother, composers, my brothers... I had everything. I could become an international star because I had everything I wanted.

Once you reached the top, was there any disillusion ?

It's been quite the opposite, if I may say so. I started at the top, with my head in the clouds. Life was just a dream and that was all I wanted. I was very satisfied because I was dreaming. Nobody could stop me, my brothers and sisters could be in the basement and I would be soaring above the clouds. And slowly, with success, I had people who put up with me, my family and my manager, René at the time, a whole little team who brought me back down to earth song after song, success after success, slowly but surely. In the end, the ascension brings you back down to earth to achieve stability. Because voice and talent are not enough. My husband told me that talent is 20 to 25% of success. Beyond that, you need good songs, the right timing, the right team. If that piece of the jigsaw doesn't fit, there's no point. I didn't have a particular look, but I wanted to get out there on stage, share my passion with people who love music, who understand music, and use the music as best I could. I've been in this whirlwind since day one and I've stayed in it. But it's not just the voice, it's the determination, it's the desire, it's the inner vibe. I had lots of doors to open, I had different ways of singing, but people gave me the keys to go to even more places. You can have a hit, you can have success, but I didn't want to have only one hit.

What has being a celebrity brought you? And what has it taken away from you?

Celebrity has made me want to never give up on anything. I was born to communicate on stage, with my team, and with my voice, and with my fans. It’s about sharing. I was born to do that. When I found myself on stage for the first time, in Québec, I caught the bug! What has fame taken away from me? Nothing? Because I live every day, and I move forward.

Do you understand Jean-Jacques Goldman’s will to stop everything and become an “ordinary” man? Have you ever been tempted by the idea of being anonymous?

What he did is very unique. He had reached his peak as an artist, but he wanted more than anything to be a father. And his biggest passion now is spending time with his daughters, with his wife. I truly respect this choice, but personally I’m not quite there yet. Jean-Jacques is extremely intelligent and talented, and he knows how to push himself. I think of him often and I listen to him on a very regular basis. I still listen to what we did together, too.

People often say that he taught you to “unsing.”

Yes, that’s true. He taught me how to let the music and the lyrics breathe. You can’t sing in French with English words, and you can’t sing in English with French words. So he showed me how to let the words accentuate the music in order to imagine the story.

Is that why you don’t sing in the same way in English and in French?

Absolutely. For example, when I wear a short skirt, I won’t sit down in the same way as I will if I’m wearing jeans. Singing in English can get flowery, it takes everything to impress, and I love that. Singing in French requires a lot of effort because you want to bring more subtlety. Sobriety.

Should we forget about technique and vocal performance?

Never! No, we should never forget vocal techniques! You should practice every day with your singing teacher. But then there are different ways to do that. You can train classical style, or pop style. If you want to perform on stage, it’s imperative. If you want to be able to do the splits, you have to train your muscles to be flexible. Singing lessons is not singing, it’s working. But once you are on stage you have to forget it all.

Do you feel Québécoise, American or French?

“Today, I feel like a woman. I feel like a mother. I am a singer, a dreamer, before being Québécoise, American or French.” I speak to my children in French or English. They think that I speak every language there is. I was born in Québec, my children were born in America. I have French blood, I have Québécois blood and American blood. And wherever I go, I sing in a different language, I learn something, I steal a part of the culture that impresses me.

You now live in Las Vegas. What is your life there like?

I had a house in Florida, but as I was traveling a lot when I was touring, we didn’t go there anymore. I had a house in Montréal, but on holiday, the children wanted to go to the beach. I got a home in Las Vegas when my eldest son was one, twenty two years ago today, and we have moved in here. I am 35 minutes away from work. That gives me the time to get ready to go to work. I can see my team, we joke around with each other, we rehearse singing… And then that gives me the chance to get on the road. I eat in the car, I get home, I see my children, and I can sleep in my own bed. I have the best of both worlds.

You are a true fashion icon. What kind of relationships do you have with designers?

I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I collaborate with the designers, as this would be very pretentious of me. On the other hand, I can say that, all my life, my mother mended my tights, sweaters, coats and mittens, all my little things for winter. I was very lucky, because I had 13 brothers and sisters, and I got everyone’s hand-me-downs. When I got my first paycheck, my first paid television appearances I bought clothes for myself and dressed myself. With my first successes, I bought a house for myself and my husband, and for my parents and some family members too. After my first album in English, I was able to buy clothes by designers, and I started to read fashion magazines. And then, I was a guest, and I’ll never forget this show by Karl Lagerfeld… He looked at me and said, “You remind me of La Callas.” I treated myself to a Lagerfeld jacket in the same way that people buy themselves diamonds.

I have always bought everything myself. I didn’t want to borrow. It’s a form of respect. People pay to come and hear me sing, so I pay to buy myself clothes by designers.

What are your dreams today?

My dream is to live in the present. One day at a time. I am truly very lucky. And I am honored to be doing a photo shoot for Vogue France because although I had better health and beauty at 30, I didn’t get asked to do one then. I am very proud that at 55, I am being asked to reveal my beauty. But what is beauty? Beauty is you, it’s me, it’s what’s on the inside, it’s our dreams, it’s today. Beauty is what surrounds us, it is there. There are people that see it, and there are people that observe it. Today, I am a woman, who feels strong and positive about the future. One day at a time.

Read More

Céline Dion makes her big comeback as the cover star of the May 2024 issue of Vogue France

Available on newsstands and online on April 24.

By Sylvia Jorif

The May 2024 issue of Vogue France is on newsstands and online from April 24, 2024

More from Vogue.fr :

Zendaya's best Met Gala looks over the years
Flashback: Céline Dion's 1994 wedding in vintage photos
7 things you didn't know about Aya Nakamura

More from Vogue France on YouTube: