Background

Céline Marie Claudette Dion has been one of the most easily recognizable names in the history of music, and it’s very unlikely that you haven’t heard at least one of her songs. She has had numerous hits that have earned her fame and has been the recipient of many awards over her lengthy music career. Dion was born on March 30, 1968, in Quebec, Canada. Her zodiac sign is Aries and her ethnicity is French-Canadian. She is the daughter of Thérèse and Adhémar-Charles Dion, who named her after a song by French singer Hugues Aufray, and she is the youngest of 14 children. Her family didn’t have much money, but what they did have was a passion for music, and Dion grew up around it. Her first-ever performance was at the age of five when she sang at her brother’s wedding, and she continued to perform in her parents’ piano bar after, dreaming of becoming a performer. At 12 years old, she wrote her first song with her mother and one of her brothers, which was then shown to music manager René Angélil by another of her brothers. He loved her voice and decided to make Dion a star, funding her debut studio album, “La voix du bon Dieu” (“The Good Lord’s Voice”). The album was released in 1981 and earned her fame in Quebec. The following year, she competed in the Yamaha World Popular Song Festival and won both ‘Top Performer’ and ‘Best Song,’ which extended her fame. Her success continued, and in 1988 she won the renowned Eurovision Song Contest, representing Switzerland.

Having only sung in French so far, Dion entered the English-speaking music world with her ninth studio album, “Unison,” which received good reviews and it was her first time on the top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 with her single ‘Where Does My Heart Beat Now.’ She followed this up by achieving another top 10 hit with a pop version of the “Beauty and the Beast” theme, recorded with Peabo Bryson to be played over the film’s credits, and the song also gave Dion her international breakthrough, as well as an Academy Award for Best Song and a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo. The commercial success of Dion’s second album in English, “Céline Dion,” paired with her previous album’s success and many media appearances had finally made her realize her dreams of being a superstar in 1992. The following year, Dion publicly declared her love for her long-time manager, René Angélil in her third English studio album “The Colour of My Love,” and they got married in 1994. The album also became her best-selling record at the time, and it earned her her first number one single with her cover of ‘The Power of Love.’ In 1995, she released her thirteenth studio album, titled “D’eux” which would go on to become the best-selling French-language album of all time. By then, Dion had become one of the best-selling artists in the world.

Her fourth English-language album, titled “Falling into You” (1996), contained some of her biggest hits, like ‘It’s All Coming Back To Me Now,’ and her covers of ‘River Deep – Mountain High’ and ‘All by Myself.’ The album earned Dion a Grammy for Album of the Year. The following year she released her fifth English album, “Let’s Talk About Love,” which featured many renowned special guests and became another major success for Dion. However, the biggest success of the album was one of its singles, the ballad titled ‘My Heart Will Go On,’ which won Academy, Golden Globe, and Grammy awards and was listened to all over the world after it became the theme for the blockbuster film “Titanic.” This made it Dion’s signature song and her most successful track to this day. After a very busy decade, she took a break from music in the early 2000s, also prompted by her husband’s cancer diagnosis. However, the couple also received joy with the birth of their first son, René-Charles Dion Angélil, in 2001. She returned to the world of music later that year, and she also published her autobiography, “My Story, My Dream.” In 2002, she released her first studio album after her break, “A New Day Has Come,” which debuted at number one in the Billboard Hot 200. From 2002 to 2007, Dion performed five times a week in Las Vegas in a show she had created called “A New Day…,” where she performed her biggest hits with dancers and special effects. She followed this up in 2008 with a year-long worldwide tour called the Taking Chances Tour, and another residency in Las Vegas called “Celine” in 2011, which lasted eight years. The same year, a documentary about her life as a mother and the preparations for “Celine” premiered, titled “Celine: 3 Boys and a New Show.” In 2016, Dion took a break to mourn the loss of both her husband and her brother to cancer but was able to return to the spotlight shortly after. In the same year, Dion received the Icon Award at the Billboard Music Awards, in recognition of her lengthy and successful career in music. In recent years, Dion has continued to release music, tour, and receive praise and awards for her work.