The singer previously revealed that SPS spasms also left her with broken ribs.
Celine Dion has been sharing the intimate—and incredibly difficult—details of her experience with Stiff Person Syndrome ahead of the release of her forthcoming Prime Video documentary, I Am: Celine Dion. In the latest reveal about her illness, the Grammy Award-winning singer shared that SPS had reduced her mobility so much that even walking became a chore.
Celine Dion Revealed Stiff Person Syndrome Because "the Burden Was Too Much"
“I barely could walk at one point, and I was missing very much living. My kids started to notice. I was like, ‘Okay, they already lost a parent. I don’t want them to be scared,'” she told People in a June 11 exclusive. “I let them know, ‘You lost your dad, [but] mom has a condition and it’s different. I’m not going to die. It’s something that I’m going to learn to live with.”
Ahead of the documentary's release, Dion sat down with Hoda Kotb on Today for a special interview, in which she detailed the effect that spasms from SPS has had on her body.
“I had broken ribs at one point,” she told the host. “Sometimes, when it’s very severe, it can break some ribs.” She further explained that it wasn’t only her ribs that experienced the spasms. “It can also be in the abdominal, it can be in the spine,” she added, in addition to other areas of the body that have the chance to become stiff.
In another excerpt from her Today special, Dion shared that she had been dealing with SPS as far back as 2008, when she was on her Taking Chances World Tour. Hiding her SPS became too much for Dion, especially as her husband was also undergoing treatment for throat cancer. "I could not do this anymore," she told Kotb of why she decided to share her diagnosis in 2022. "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."
I Am: Celine Dion premiers on Prime Video on June 25, and Dion's interview special with Today premieres on June 11 at 10 p.m. on NBC.