Céline Dion is sharing some of the more painful details of her battle with stiff-person syndrome.
“What was happening to your voice when you were trying to sing?” Hoda Kotb asked Dion, 56, in a Friday, June 7, Today show preview of their upcoming sit-down interview. Dion replied that trying to sing felt like “somebody strangling you.”
“It’s like somebody is pushing your larynx/pharynx this way,” she said while pushing her hand into the front of her neck. Demonstrating how she sounded as a result, Dion stated in a higher-pitched, strained tone, “It was like talking like that, and you cannot go high or lower. It gets into a spasm.”
The Grammy winner went on to explain that her spasms not only occur in her throat, but also can be “in the abdominal, can be in the spine [and] can be in the ribs.” Dion said that sometimes if she pointed her feet or used her hands while cooking, they would lock in place.
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“It’s cramping, but it’s, like, in a position of you cannot unlock them,” she told Kotb, 59. “I had broken ribs at one point, because sometimes when it’s very severe, it can break some ribs as well.”
The latter details came as a surprise to Kotb. “You spasm so hard that it can break a rib?” she asked the singer, which she confirmed by nodding.
Kotb previously teased what fans can expect to see in their “really rare conversation” during a May episode of Today With Hoda & Jenna. “[She talked about everything that she’s been through, about her hopeful comeback, what it did to her voice, that beautiful voice, and where she is now,” Kotb told her cohosts before calling Dion “enlightening and beautiful and amazing.”
She revealed that the special will even feature some musical moments, telling Jenna Bush Hager, “She sang with me. It was just, like, an amazing time.’
The pair will also discuss Dion’s upcoming Prime Video documentary, I Am Céline Dion, which premieres on June 25. “[The film] was so jarring to me and moving that I couldn’t believe what they were able to capture in that documentary,” Kotb said of the film, adding, “Céline Dion at some point — she is now much better — but at some point, she almost died, which is something that she says.”
Dion announced her stiff-person syndrome diagnosis in December 2022. Earlier this year, she received a standing ovation while making a rare public appearance at the 2024 Grammys to present the award for Album of the Year to Taylor Swift.
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“It was very nerve-wracking, but at the same time, a big honor,” she said of the moment during an April episode of Vogue’s “Life in Looks” video series. “That magic. That excitement. To see fans, to see the crowd. To see show business again.”
Sporting a pale pink dress to the awards ceremony, Dion said she felt comfortable by wearing a Valentino coat over the gown. “It made me feel better for a moment to hold onto this coat, to hide myself a little bit from all these little things,” she stated.
A preview of Kotb and Dion’s interview will air Tuesday, June 11, on Today, followed by the full primetime special at 10 p.m. ET.
