Laurence Pieau and Hervé Tropéa co-sign “Céline Dion, the real story”. A biography released shortly before the announcement last December of the cancellation of virtually all of the Quebec singer’s European concerts scheduled for this year.
She says she’s an “open book” and her fans know all about her life. It’s not completely true. Of Céline Dion, an extraordinary star with 240 million records sold, many things are still unknown: her determination to have a career like Michael Jackson, long before her path crossed that of René Angélil; his tricks to make him succumb; how she reacted to the rape accusations against him; the way she always pushes her body and her voice further, at the risk of damaging herself; his immense loneliness.
Impervious to mockery – she sees it as a tribute – and to caricatures, she is very intelligent, incredibly cash, funny and endearing. Neither prudish nor submissive, Celine Dion also knows how to be sharp. She only wavered when she lost the two pillars of her life: her husband in 2016 and her mother Thérèse in 2020. Since then, the whole world has been worried about the mental and physical health of the one who lives surrounded by doctors For years.
Voice concerns since 1989
This is what, among others, Laurence Pieau and Hervé Tropéa indicate in their biography devoted to the Quebec singer who represented and won Switzerland at Eurovision in 1988, “Céline Dion, the real story” published at the end from last year. Subtitled “The secrets of a fragile idol”, the book looks back on the health worries that have accompanied her for a long time and forced her to give up a large part of her international and European tour this year.
>> To read also: Celine Dion cancels her concert at the Paléo Festival for health reasons
“Céline Dion has always been fragile, because she has always pushed her body and her health (…) Her voice concerns began in 1989 in Toronto where she has a voice that began to drop on stage. She will realize, when she was 21, that she had never worked on her voice and that it had to be worked on. For five years, she would then subject herself to exercises, to treatment. These exercises, she then do them all her life. Celine Dion is someone who goes all the way. And as she gets older, it will become more and more complicated for her”, explains Laurence Pieau to RTS.
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For the writing of their book, Laurence Pieau and Hervé Tropéa left where it all began, in Charlemagne in Quebec, where Celine Dion, encouraged by her fourteen brothers and sisters, launched into song. Then sees himself offered at the age of 12 by his mother his first title, “It was only a dream”, then publishes a first album entitled “The voice of the good God”. The book then follows in his footsteps to Las Vegas, where René Angélil played poker the money that Celine Dion earned on stage and where the singer will end up living recluse in this cardboard decor.
Interview by Antoine Droux
Adaptation web: olhor
Laurence Pieau and Hervé Tropéa, “Céline Dion, the real story”, Robert Laffont.
