Celine Dion made a powerful comeback on Friday, closing out the Paris Olympics’ opening ceremony with a grand performance from the Eiffel Tower.
Nearly two years after revealing her stiff person syndrome diagnosis, Dion delivered Edith Piaf’s ‘Hymne à l’amour’ ‘Hymn to Love’, as the finale of the four-hour event.
Despite weeks of speculation, neither the organizers nor Dion’s representatives confirmed her participation until the moment she appeared.
The media guide for Dior’s contributions to the ceremony alluded to “a world star, for a purely grandiose, superbly scintillating finale.”
Dion had been off the stage since 2020 when the pandemic delayed her tour to 2022, which was later suspended due to her diagnosis.
The rare neurological disorder, characterized by rigid muscles and painful spasms, affected her ability to walk and sing.
Speaking at the June premiere of the documentary “I Am: Celine Dion,” she explained that her return involved extensive therapy, “physically, mentally, emotionally, vocally.”
“So that’s why it takes a while. But absolutely why we’re doing this because I’m already a little bit back,” she said.
Even before the documentary, Dion hinted at her comeback with a surprise appearance at the Grammy Awards in February, where she presented the final award of the night to a standing ovation.
For her performance on Friday, Dion’s pearl outfit was designed by Dior.
The Paris organizing committee’s director of design and costume for ceremonies, Daphné Bürki, shared on French television that Dion was eager for the opportunity.
“When we called Celine Dion one year ago she said yes straight away,” Bürki said.
Although Dion is not French, the French Canadian from Quebec has strong ties to France and the Olympics.
French is her first language, and she has topped charts in France and other French-speaking regions.
She also won the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest with a French song representing Switzerland.
Early in her English-language career, even before her iconic ‘My Heart Will Go On’ from ‘Titanic’, she performed ‘The Power of The Dream’, the theme song for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
Dion’s choice of song also connected to sports history: Piaf wrote it about her lover, boxer Marcel Cerdan, who tragically died in a plane crash soon after she wrote the song.
