When Celine Dion was presented with the icon award by her 15 year-old son, Rene-Charles, at the Billboard Music Awards on Sunday she looked incredibly surprised and choked up. You could chalk that up to the powerful and emotional performance she just gave, but it turned out that Celine was totally surprised that Rene-Charles gave her the award. Producers set it up using a code word so that Celine wouldn’t know he was joining her on stage. In an interview backstage with ET Online, Celine said that she was working hard not to cry that night and to be strong for her family but she just couldn’t help it. She also explained to Extra that moments like these, when she’s accepting awards and in the public eye, are going to be her legacy after she’s gone. “When I’m gone, these are the moments that will stay, [that my children] will remember. I mean, they’re 15 and 5. When I’m gone, they’ll look at this. What you say and what you did, it’s important.” That really got to me, Celine is the real deal and her words pack an emotional punch. She just lost her husband a few months ago and the fact that she’s not going to be around forever either is fresh on her mind. Celine has her situation in perspective though, she told ET that she knows she’s not the only woman who has lost her husband. I love her so much.
Backstage, Dion opened up to ET’s Cameron Mathison about the emotional moment, and how finding strength in difficult times does not mean who have to conceal your feelings with those you love.
“You have to be strong, but I think it’s important as well to not hold everything,” she shared, admitting, “I tried to hold it in front of my 5-year-old twins, but my 15-and-a-half year old beautiful son is old enough to understand.
“Even though I did not want to cry, he understands it’s okay because it is therapeutic and you can’t take so much pressure,” she continued. “You can take so much strength and weight on your shoulders, but sometimes you can’t control everything.”
For Dion’s own performance, the 48-year-old songstress gave a heart-wrenching performance of Queen’s “The Show Must Go On,” which she told ET was her late husband’s “favorite song.”
“To try to perform that song without collapsing was big enough,” she explained, “and then I turned around and I saw my son. As a mother, I really, through this whole process of our new life, wanted to be strong.”
“I thought I was going to make it through the whole night without tears and show strength, and love won,” she said. “I just collapsed. I’m very thankful for the award and proud of my family so much.”
For Dion, the performance marked a “new chapter” in her life as both a mother and performer.
“I’m not the first woman and I’m not the last one who will lose her husband,” the singer shared. “It’s hard, but my family is helping me through it. I hope I think people know that I don’t do music, I don’t do my passion and sing to win an award. It’s never been the number one goal. It’s to share moments with fans and the celebration of music itself.”
Everyone is also talking about how handsome and grown up Rene-Charles is. It seems like he was a little boy with the long hair just a couple of years ago and now he’s a young man. E! had “Five Things You Don’t Know About” for Rene-Charles and he’s still in high school of course, he plays hockey, and he just seems like a normal kid judging by his Instagram. He also Instagrammed a photo with Rihanna backstage at the BBMAs. Look at how thrilled he looks! This just reminds me how fast kids grow up. My son is almost as tall as me now.
ET also reported that Celine stopped doing interviews to watch the tribute to Prince. She praised Madonna and Stevie Wonder’s performances and called them “wonderful.” She also told a story about how Prince had asked her how it was to perform in Vegas in a residency because he was considering it. Imagine how incredible that would have been.
I thought Elton John said Prince had a residency in Vegas…. I guess that was back in the day and he wanted to know how things changed?
I saw Rene-Charles on tv and I thought he was older than 15, like 17 or 18…
Celine’s brother also passed away a few days after her husband. She is an amazing woman to hold it all together for her family.
That kid is his mother’s son. He looks just like her brother.
I like Celine. Her music is not my thing but she seems like a nice lady. Her son is a good looking boy. I wish her and her fam the best.
Celine is one singer/celeb that I completely misread in the 90’s. SNL did those skits where she always referred to herself in the 3 rd person and I always assumed a whif of Diva.
Since that time I’ve seen some “real” moments w/her ( meeting Kathy Griffen on her show) and she is the most disarmingly sweet, genuine person. I ‘m a forever fan and she’s the ONLY celeb I’ve done such a turnabout on….
Shes incredibly talented, savvy, and embraces her kind of “cooky” persona with an honesty and light heartedness thats endearing- Celine Dion is a great performer. Her love and devotion for family, especially to Rene, is so genuine. I miss her 90s drama videos…good times
Handsome boy.
I love Celine & she really seems like a beautifully, doting, devoted, loving mother & its apparent she’s raising her kids to be as humble & genuine & strong as she is & her husband was. I truly adore this family. And i agree, he is totally his mother’s son…twinning all the way
Sidenote:
Rihanna looks so pretty, she just photographs so well…Im a bit jealous 😒
When I saw Rene-Charles I was shocked at how grown he looked. In my mind he was like a an 8 year old boy with long hair lol. And I love this pic of him and Riri, such warm smiles.
Celine Dion and her obvious lovely relationship with her late husband is why I don’t look at all relationships with huge age gaps as evil and manipulative like a lot of people on the internet do. I’m not saying it’s an ideal situation nor am I saying that their relationship was perfect but how can anyone say that Celine and her husband shouldn’t have been together?
my in-laws are similar. He’s 25 years older than my husband’s mom and almost 80. He was her prof and they got together after her classes. She was young and had an 8 year old son, and she was his third marriage. She would have been 24ish. She thought he had a lot of money, being a vet surgeon and professor, but he is very self- indulgent. They’ve been married over 30 years. It isn’t a marriage I would want, but she adores him and he swings between tolerating her and being very sweet to her. The biggest difference I see is their generational experiences and how those inform their worldview. She’s also a bigot, and he is not, but he has drifted more liberal with age. He is healthier physically and mentally than she is.
Celine is a classy lady and I applaud her for getting back up and performing again. if I lost my husband and brother in such a short span, I would probably still be in the fetal position months later.
never been a fan, the age difference and power dynamic of her marriage always got a side eye from me but this is very touching. she seems pretty awesome and real for being a gazillionaire that never hears the word no and doesn’t have to do anything except reap the benefits of her past work. i can see why her fans adore her. she doesn’t seem to have changed a bit over these many long years when she easily could have become a freak diva monster.
I’m not really a fan of her voice or music, but I think she is a beautiful, funny, smart and compassionate woman. It’s hard not to like her! However, I worry a little with how she keeps saying she wants to be “strong” and doesn’t want to cry. That’s probably the stages of grief talking, but I hope she knows it’s okay to feel the grief and show it to her loved ones…
I felt the same way. She kept apologizing for getting emotional & crying to both her son & the audience. Shes experienced much grief in a short time & i hope shes coping w it in a healthy manner & not trying to distract herself from feeling those natural human emotions, even in front of her children. Strength is a difficult thing to muster when faced w loss & tragedy but her kids have to know its ok to cry…even mommy
I definitely got choked up right there after her performance. Such an inspiration- I would be inconsolable after living through the losses she suffered &…yeah. Love that lady.
Does Celine Dion ever give money to charity?
It’s a strange question to ask, especially in this context, but yes, she does, and quite a lot. She (and Rene) gives a lot to the Montreal pediatrics hospital, and various charities in Quebec. She comes from a close to dirt-poor family and does remember it.
I’m not a fan of Celine Dion. I never liked her voice, I think she screams too much (though she’s not the only one pretending that screaming is singing), the songs are ridiculously cheezy (some of the ones composed by Jean-Jacques Goldman in the 90s had nice lyrics), there’s no artistic value in the product delivered (but it can be entertaining to some) and her lack of “formal” education shows and will show even more now that Rene is gone and can’t control everything; she’s been sheltered basically all of her life. But despite all this, even I can still say that she’s a genuinely nice and generous person.