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.



‘Secrets of the Penguins’ to Be Premiered on Eve of Earth Day

A group of adult Emperor penguins travel along the sea ice on their bellies after exiting the water against, as the ice shelf is seen in the distance, on the Ekström Ice Shelf, Antarctica, in this undated handout image obtained by Reuters on April 17, 2025. (National Geographic/Bertie Gregory/Handout via Reuters)
A group of adult Emperor penguins travel along the sea ice on their bellies after exiting the water against, as the ice shelf is seen in the distance, on the Ekström Ice Shelf, Antarctica, in this undated handout image obtained by Reuters on April 17, 2025. (National Geographic/Bertie Gregory/Handout via Reuters)
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‘Secrets of the Penguins’ to Be Premiered on Eve of Earth Day

A group of adult Emperor penguins travel along the sea ice on their bellies after exiting the water against, as the ice shelf is seen in the distance, on the Ekström Ice Shelf, Antarctica, in this undated handout image obtained by Reuters on April 17, 2025. (National Geographic/Bertie Gregory/Handout via Reuters)
A group of adult Emperor penguins travel along the sea ice on their bellies after exiting the water against, as the ice shelf is seen in the distance, on the Ekström Ice Shelf, Antarctica, in this undated handout image obtained by Reuters on April 17, 2025. (National Geographic/Bertie Gregory/Handout via Reuters)

Years of filming, often in extreme conditions, has provided new insights into the extraordinary challenges endured by penguins for a documentary series to be premiered on Monday, the eve of Earth Day.

"Secrets of the Penguins" is voiced by US actor Blake Lively and hosted by National Geographic explorer Bertie Gregory, who hopes to engage the widest possible audience with the natural world.

He says filming that included 274 days on the Ekström Ice Shelf in Antarctica, home to around 20,000 emperor penguins, as well as in locations from Cape Town in South Africa to the Galapagos Islands, led to discovering "new penguin secrets".

"I have filmed penguins a lot before," he said. "I thought I knew penguins. I was so wrong."

The three-part series, to be screened on Disney+ on Monday, and on Nat Geo Wild from Tuesday, in all took more than two years to film.

The highlights include penguin chicks jumping off a 50-foot (15 m) ice cliff in order to dive into the sea for the first time in their young lives.

"As soon as the first one went ... they all started to jump. It was an amazing moment to witness," Gregory said, adding the exploit has never been broadcast before.

"They're the only animal in the world to raise their young during the Antarctic winter. It is the coldest, darkest, windiest place on Earth," he said further.

Gregory says the significance goes beyond any one species.

"We should want to look after penguins, not just because it makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside, but because we need healthy, wild places for so many things," he said.

The 31-year-old explorer has two Daytime Emmy Awards for the series "Animals Up Close with Bertie Gregory" and a BAFTA Television Craft Award for shooting British naturalist David Attenborough's "Seven Worlds, One Planet".

He does not see himself taking on the mantle of the 98-year-old Attenborough, who is still at work.

"He's one of a kind," Gregory said. "There is no replacement."