Celine Dion Offers a Portrait of Resilience in New Documentary

 Canadian singer Celine Dion attends the New York special screening of the documentary film "I Am: Celine Dion" at Alice Tully Hall in New York City on June 17, 2024. (AFP)
Canadian singer Celine Dion attends the New York special screening of the documentary film "I Am: Celine Dion" at Alice Tully Hall in New York City on June 17, 2024. (AFP)
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Celine Dion Offers a Portrait of Resilience in New Documentary

 Canadian singer Celine Dion attends the New York special screening of the documentary film "I Am: Celine Dion" at Alice Tully Hall in New York City on June 17, 2024. (AFP)
Canadian singer Celine Dion attends the New York special screening of the documentary film "I Am: Celine Dion" at Alice Tully Hall in New York City on June 17, 2024. (AFP)

Music legend Celine Dion vowed Monday her "passion as a performer will never disappear," despite health struggles she says are still just a small part of her monumental story.

"I'm not dead," the singer told AFP on the red carpet ahead of the premiere of the new documentary "I Am: Celine Dion" that focuses on her soaring career and more recent struggles with a rare neurological disorder that has hampered her ability to perform.

"When life imposes something on you, you have two options. You deal with it or you don't want to deal with it," Dion said, calling her decision to speak out about her condition in the documentary both "the greatest gift and the greatest responsibility."

"It's not going to go away," she said of the disorder. "I'm going to have to deal with this. And I am."

The 56-year-old first disclosed in December 2022 that she had been diagnosed with Stiff Person Syndrome, a progressive autoimmune disorder with no cure.

Treatment can help alleviate symptoms of the condition that can cause stiff muscles in the torso, arms and legs as well as trigger severe spasms.

"The show will still go on," she promised, but said it was important to be honest about the struggle.

Irene Taylor, the Academy Award-nominated director behind the film, told AFP that Dion's one ask was to be able to tell her own story, in her own words.

"Would that be possible? Instead of other people talking about me?" she recalls the superstar requesting.

"That was like music to my ears as a storyteller," Taylor said.

"She just opened up and was very authentic ... in her joy and also in her suffering."

The documentary will begin streaming globally on June 25 on Prime Video.

Dion was forced to cancel a string of shows scheduled for 2023 and 2024, saying she was not strong enough to tour.

She made a surprise appearance earlier this year at the Grammy Awards, presenting the Album of the Year award to Taylor Swift.

Dion has sold more than 250 million albums during her decades-long career.

The Quebec-born star's "Courage World Tour" began in 2019, and Dion had completed 52 shows before the Covid-19 pandemic put the remainder on hold.



Kim Kardashian Will Testify in Paris Trial About Jewelry Heist That Upended Her Life 

US socialite Kim Kardashian arrives for the 4th Annual Academy Museum Gala at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, October 19, 2024. (AFP)
US socialite Kim Kardashian arrives for the 4th Annual Academy Museum Gala at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, October 19, 2024. (AFP)
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Kim Kardashian Will Testify in Paris Trial About Jewelry Heist That Upended Her Life 

US socialite Kim Kardashian arrives for the 4th Annual Academy Museum Gala at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, October 19, 2024. (AFP)
US socialite Kim Kardashian arrives for the 4th Annual Academy Museum Gala at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, October 19, 2024. (AFP)

The last time Kim Kardashian faced the men that police say robbed her, she was bound with zip ties and held at gunpoint, and feared she might die. On Tuesday, nearly a decade later, she returns to Paris to testify against them.

One of the most recognizable figures on the planet is expected to take the stand against the 10 men accused of orchestrating the 2016 robbery that left her locked in a marble bathroom while masked assailants made off with more than $6 million in jewels.

Kardashian is set to speak about the trauma that reshaped her life and redefined the risks of celebrity in the age of social media. Her appearance is expected to be the most emotionally charged moment of a trial that began last month.

Court officials are bracing for a crowd, and security will be tight. A second courtroom has been opened for journalists following via video feed.

Kardashian’s testimony is expected to revisit, in painful detail, how intruders zip-tied her hands, demanded her ring, and left her believing she might never see her children again.

Twelve suspects were originally charged. One has died. Another has been excused from proceedings due to serious illness. Most are in their 60s and 70s — dubbed les papys braqueurs, or “the grandpa robbers,” by the French press — but investigators insist they were no harmless retirees. Authorities have described them as a seasoned and coordinated criminal group.

Two of the defendants have admitted being at the scene. The others deny any involvement — some even claim they didn’t know who Kardashian was. But police say the group tracked her movements through her own social media posts, which flaunted her jewelry, pinpointed her location, and exposed her vulnerability.

The heist transformed Kardashian into a cautionary tale of hyper-visibility in the digital age.

In the aftermath, she withdrew from public life. She developed severe anxiety and later described symptoms of agoraphobia. “I hated to go out,” she said in a 2021 interview. “I didn’t want anybody to know where I was ... I just had such anxiety.”

Her lawyers confirmed she would appear in court. “She has tremendous appreciation and admiration for the French judicial system,” they wrote, adding that she hopes the trial proceeds “in an orderly fashion ... and with respect for all parties.”

Once dismissed in parts of the French press as a reality TV spectacle — and lambasted by Karl Lagerfeld for being too flashy — Kardashian now returns as a key witness in a case that has forced a wider reckoning with how celebrity, crime, and perception collide.

Her lawyers say she is “particularly grateful” to French authorities — and ready to confront those who attacked her with dignity.