Céline Dion has made her first public appearance in nearly four years as she continues to battle stiff-person syndrome.
The ‘My Heart Will Go On’ singer, 55, revealed her diagnosis in December 2022, which forced her to pull the plug on her ‘Courage World Tour’, but she dropped in on an NHL game at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Monday night between the Vegas Golden Knights and her hometown team the Montreal Canadiens.
After the game, which saw the Habs lose, Dion went into the locker room and chatted with everyone there as she went around and shook their hands, with the Canadiens coach Martin St-Louis, 48, telling her in a conversation in French he fondly recalled seeing her sing for the pope when she was only 14.
Dion then told players to stay “strong” and “healthy” and to keep “doing what you do best” – before joking as they posed for a snap not to “be shy” to get close to her as they “smelled great”.
The mom-of-three singer’s son René-Charles, 22, and twins Eddy and Nelson, 13, were also with her and posed for photos with players.
Her visit comes a couple of months after Dion’s sister said the star was suffering uncontrollable “spasms” she continues to battle her incurable stiff person syndrome.
Claudette Dion, 74, said in September all the singer’s family can do to help her “strong” sister or “alleviate her pain”.
She told HELLO! Canada: “She’s doing everything to recover. She’s a strong woman.
“It’s an illness we know so little about. There are spasms – they’re impossible to control.
“You know who people often jump up in the night because of a cramp in the leg or the calf? It’s a bit like that, but in all muscles.
“There’s little we can do to support her, to alleviate her pain.”
Stiff person syndrome is a rare, progressive neurological disorder that can cause stiff muscles in the torso, arms and legs and affects about one in a million people.
Dion was left devastated when her music producer husband René Angélil died in 2016 aged 73 after they were married for 22 years.