Canadian music icon Céline Dion teared up after receiving a standing ovation at the New York special screening of her Amazon MGM documentary, “I Am: Celine Dion.”
“Thank you to all of you, from the bottom of my heart, for being part of my journey. This movie is my love letter to each of you,” Dion told the audience at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. “I hope to see you all again very, very soon.”
Directed by Irene Taylor, “I Am: Celine Dion” chronicles a year of the megastar’s journey with stiff person syndrome (SPS), a rare neurological and autoimmune disorder that causes muscular stiffness, inhibiting the ability to walk and sing.
At the screening, Dion acknowledged her neurologist, Dr. Amanda Piquet, saying she “delivered an important result for me: she has replaced my fear with hope.”
She announced that the Celine Dion Foundation had pledged $2 million to establish the Celine Dion Foundation Endowed Chair in Autoimmune Neurology at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Piquet will be the first person to hold the chair.
Prior to the screening, Dion and Taylor spoke on the carpet about the process of filming the documentary.
Taylor said she had “no agenda” when she was shooting. “Every day that I came, I just wanted to meet her where she was at that day. There were a couple of days, we thought we would film, and we didn’t because she just didn’t feel up for it,” she said. “So every day was different… Sometimes filming made her feel better.”
Dion said that, in the wake of her public announcement of her diagnosis, “a lot of people” reached out to her, from “fans to known people, unknown people, people with stiff person syndrome, people who are searching and saying, ‘Do I have SPS?'”.
“I have a responsibility to bring awareness,” she added.
Dion first shared that she suffered from the disorder in December 2022, when she announced via video message that she had to postpone her “Courage” tour, which had been planned for the following February.
“I miss you so much,” she said in the video. “I miss seeing all of you, being on the 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.”
Following her diagnosis, Dion made her first major public appearance at the 2024 Grammys, where she earned a huge standing ovation.
She gave her first TV interview in NBC News’ hourlong special “Celine’s Story” with Hoda Kotb. Dion revealed that before her diagnosis, she took up to 90 milligrams of Valium per day in order to perform. Singing with SPS, she said, feels like “somebody’s strangling you.”
“I Am: Celine Dion” was acquired by Amazon MGM in January. The first trailer was released in May and showed archival and behind-the-scenes footage interspersed with clips of new interviews.
“It’s not hard to do a show, you know. It’s hard to cancel a show,” the singer said in the trailer. “I’m working hard everyday. But I have to admit, it’s been a struggle. I miss it so much. The people, I miss them. If I can’t run, I’ll walk. If I can’t walk, I’ll crawl. I won’t stop.”
“I Am: Celine Dion” premieres on Prime Video on June 25.
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