Celine Dion surprised fans when she made an appearance on a special broadcast to introduce the Sunday Night Football game between the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers.
The game marked the teams' first primetime clash since 1982 and their first meeting since 2020.
"I think my favorite thing about this game is its power to connect who we are, to who we were," she shared in the video, according to Billboard. "To prove that our most powerful memories, our most enduring loves, can stay with us forever."
In the video, Dion walks into the recording studio wearing a casual outfit featuring Chuck Taylor high tops and a gray sweatshirt celebrating the 1996 Super Bowl, which the Cowboys won 27-17.
"You know what I’m talking about, right? Sometimes, some nights, it all just comes back," she said, a nod to her powerful 1996 hit song "It’s All Coming Back to Me Now."
Speaking while footage of classic Steelers-Cowboys played in the background, Dion reminisced about "their love affair — well, maybe not love the way I usually sing about it, but still, you know, work with me here."
She then quoted lyrics from her power ballad, "When you touch me like this. When you hold me like that," adding jokingly, "It kind of fits, no?"
Reflecting on the past, Dion remarked, "But really what beautiful passion it produced, what painful heartbreak it revealed so, so long ago. Like so many old flames, it always feels right when they’re back together. Don’t you think? Like tonight evoking the kind of magic they once produced."
She prepared viewers for the game with a montage of the teams' coaches receiving celebratory Gatorade baths while her ballad played in the background. At the end, she was drenched in Gatorade herself, pumping her fists in excitement.
Dion retreated from the public eye amid her battle with stiff-person syndrome but earlier this year performed at the opening ceremony for the 2024 Summer Olympics. She also opened up about her struggles, saying that she decided to go public with the diagnosis because being silent on her health issues felt like she was "lying" to her fans.
In an NBC interview, the Grammy-winning singer, who was diagnosed in 2022, shared that she initially tried to push through her early symptoms. Her focus was on her late husband René Angélil, who died in 2016 from throat cancer, and three sons René-Charles, 23, and her 13-year-old twins, Nelson and Eddy, according to USA Today.
Looking back, she said she "did not take the time" to understand her own health concerns.
"I should have stopped," she told "Today" host Hoda Kotb.
"My husband as well was fighting for his own life. I had to raise my kids. I had to hide. I had to try to be a hero. Feeling my body leaving me, holding on to my own dreams," she said. "And the lying for me was … the burden was too much."
Dion further stated that she could not handle "lying to the people who got me where I am today."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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