I Am: Cèline Dion & Olympics Performance

Documentary Review of this Legendary Widow

This week, the world is buzzing about Celine Dion’s appearance at the Olympics in Paris, and before that, she launched her “I Am: Celine Dion” documentary on Amazon Prime.

Yesterday, I caught up on both and wanted to share some Moor Thoughts.

There is so much to unpack here.

One of my earliest memories of Celine is her iconic song My Heart Will Go On from the movie Titanic released in 1997, which she played in Vegas that has garnered 171 million views. We’ve all seen it; I watched the movie in the theater with my late husband Chad in 1999 and remember vividly turning and saying to him, “I cannot imagine my life without you.” The thought of letting go of his hand in icy water and never seeing him again was deeply painful to fathom and affected me for weeks, months and years. For a moment, I was faced with the idea that someone I loved more than life could actually die and leave me behind still alive, and that was an excruciating thought.

In 2000, that excruciating experience became a reality for me and my family when I had to say goodbye to him. I remembered that Titanic moment and thought I knew what "excruciating" meant, but I realized I barely understood it at all.

I don’t follow many celebrities, so Celine Dion wasn't really on my radar as I preceded as a busy solo parent entrepreneur, nonprofit founder, until she became a widow in 2016, which hit the world news. (Although, no one ever describes her as a ‘widow’- since many celebrity stars in widowhood are supposedly excluding of the unfair stigma of owning the word).

Since then, I’ve watched from a distance with concern, though optimistically. We often can’t tell what happens in a celebrity’s life beyond the curated image we see on social media. Their life is a bubble of security gates and security codes and security personnel. You are either inside or outside.

From the outside, I saw a woman with three young sons to raise and an epic career, suddenly without her husband, who was also her manager and the father of her children, for the first time in her life. She had undoubtedly been a caregiver for her husband for nearly a decade, with the prolific personal and practical support that wealth can provide. However, I suspect that as a wife, mother, and performer, there were things only she could do during that time. Life’s struggles don’t absolve us of our existing roles when new titles like caregiver or widow enter our lives.

As a widow mentor, I have had tens of thousands of conversations with a diverse groups of women who have lost a spouse, so I am especially familiar with what the first two years entail practically, emotionally and mentally. They are years of rebirth, where one learns to breathe and stand again after having the wind knocked out of them and being leveled by the loss of their identity as a wife. It’s difficult to accept and process because our brains don’t adjust to reality as quickly as those around us living on the earthly plane. Breathing and standing are both literal and symbolic.

So, I was concerned when I saw that she relaunched her Vegas residency on February 23 to a sold out performance and fully resumed the March 15, 2016, just two months after her husband René Angélil died on January 4, 2016. Surely a legally binding contract to fulfill.

I imagined that extensive planning for a decision like that happened long before the public announcement. That planning likely kept the two of them focused on what brought them joy: Celine performing at her highest level and shining while doing it. It gave them hope and a unified purpose—something to live for.

But stepping onto the stage with the "show must go on" mentality she shared with all of us couldn't outrun her grief or the devastating physical toll that widowhood can take on a human being, hitting our lives like a wrecking ball. We can run, but we cannot hide.

Soon, this was manifested into phenomenally emotional songs from her Courage world tour and album songs such as, Courage (Celine’s favorite), Love Never Dies, Ashes, Flying On My Own, Lying Down, Imperfections, I Will Be Stronger, For the Lover That I Lost, How Did You Get Here, and Perfect Goodbye.

*Later she wrote a recorded a song written by PINK called Recovering (PINK’S mom is also a widow). The theme of her songs were therapy for her, an expression of the real life she was living as a widow, solo parent, who was missing a life and identity that was gone. René’s wife and business partner in life. There was nowhere he wasn’t, and so healing and recovery would also touch all of those points of contact. Not an easy walk for anyone.

I chose two Celine Dion songs for our 10 Year Anniversary Celebration Video - 1) Courage and 2) Flying On My Own. Watch here and be inspired!!!!

The body keeps the score. Soon though, her lower back spasms started to intensify in 2017 while on tour. Only one year into widowhood. Grief can impact the body, mind and soul in ways we cannot predict. She certainly was experiencing this on multiple fronts.

In her recent Amazon Prime documentary, I Am, released on June 17, 2024, we get an honest and raw behind-the-scenes look at her life after loss. The film reveals the battle she was facing in the background with her developing autoimmune disorder, Stiff Person Syndrome.

This is what I feared: the physical breakdown and impact I often speak about in the widowhood experience. Too many widows face this every day. It's not just autoimmune issues stemming from anxiety, exhaustion, and overwhelm, but also heart problems, alopecia, high blood pressure, brain fog, MS, early menopause and many other health issues that go unrecognized when a woman becomes widowed. Women carry too much weight on their shoulders, both personally and professionally, and adding widowhood into the mix is an all-out assault on our health. We must raise awareness of this issue to combat it effectively.

The documentary reveals raw moments of stark truth, showing that Céline Dion needed increasingly higher doses of Valium to keep going and calm her muscles on stage—until the day it no longer worked. She pushed herself to her limits in an unhealthy way. The film is a valuable warning that in widowhood, prioritizing your health and self-love practices is crucial to literally keep going. Their power to empower your new self-identity cannot be underestimated.

The movie begins and ends with a pivotal scene where a young, innocent Céline Dion shares her hope of becoming an international star and singing to her heart's content for audiences.

In I Am: Céline Dion, it is clear that she is searching for that innocence in life today.

This is something all widows face: the loss of their innocence when the death of someone so precious in their lives becomes a reality. Rebirth is exactly that—you are now like an innocent baby, growing into someone new after the death of who you used to be with the person you loved. You learn to "be" and "become" the future you.

Now in her eighth year of widowhood, Céline is moving through a journey I've often explored in my research. I have found that the new identity healing process in widowhood can take anywhere from 5-7 years to rebuild a completely new self that you admire and embody. Widows walk the hope, heal, grow and lead pathway we encourage. She has passed the threshold of the first seven year phase.

The next seven years involve living in the full reality of this newly built self and facing the world as a restored being who understands life’s complexity on a deeper level through wisdom and visions of discovery.

It's no surprise to me that she can now say in “I Am: Céline Dion” with such passion and confidence in her song “Love Again” this line “you don’t have to move a mountain just keep moving”. She has done the work and will continue to explore this new Céline Dion, the one she built from ashes.

We saw the new person she has become when she sang at the Olympics. Her performance was magnificent, and when a widow emerges from the ashes and returns as a phoenix, people take note.

In the second phase of widowhood, I’ve identified that compassion and empathy begin to blossom, and Céline Dion has already demonstrated this by her philanthropic giving to support autoimmune research through her foundation. We can expect to see more generosity in areas that inspire her. She is entering the sage years of knowing pain intimately—not just singing about it. Although she already understood pain through her infertility struggles, widowhood is another experience entirely. She's on a resilient, survivor mission, much like what we have found in life.

In her documentary, she mentioned that she had traveled the world many times but never truly saw it (watch for it). Today, she ‘sees’ everything differently and is taking her time. If you follow her on IG, you saw she visited the Paris museums and they brought her to tears seeing the Mona Lisa and arts of great historic significance and beauty at The Louvre Museum (which I highly recommend as a bucket list).