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Something to Sing About
First you hear cooing coming from the kitchen, then giggles, and finally the soft patter of French. Celine Dion is doing what she enjoys most: hanging out with her year-old son, René-Charles. Minutes later she appears with child in arms, wearing sneakers, white slacks (stained with chocolate and spinach from the baby's feeding) and a blue shirt with the tail untucked."He can take steps," she says. "But we are always carrying him, holding him close." Two years ago the 34-year-old chanteuse told fans she wanted to take a break from her music. She felt she needed time to be with her husband and, as she put it, "to be bored." And she wanted a baby.
In 1994 Dion had married her twice-divorced manager, René Angélil, 60, who has three grown children. The couple set about trying to start a family, but Dion was convinced the stress of relentless touring was preventing her from conceiving. She had sold nearly 130 million albums worldwide, won five Grammys, and collaborated with Barbra Streisand and Luciano Pavarotti. She had dominated the Billboard charts with the hit "My Heart Will Go On," from Titanic. But after a world tour that ended with a millennium concert in Montreal, she decided it was time to stick closer to home.
Her instincts were just right. She became pregnant via in vitro fertilization, recommended before her husband received treatment for throat cancer in 1999.
She gave birth to René-Charles on January 25, 2001, and has spent the last year golfing, cooking and tending to her boy and his dad. This month she makes her return to music with the release of a new album, A New Day Has Come.
Writer Ana Veciana-Suarez sat down with Dion at the singer's Jupiter, Florida, estate to talk about motherhood and Dion's changing priorities.
RD: What was it like to take two years off?
Dion: Crucial. It was very, very, very important. My husband was diagnosed with cancer three years ago. He's still in remission, and he's doing -- knock on wood -- fantastically. He needed me. And I needed him to need me. Normally René's a tough guy. He's the one who's in control of everything. But now he wanted to lay [his head] on my shoulder. He gave me a responsibility, and it made me feel very powerful and very strong.
RD: And the baby?
Dion: Yes, we wanted a child. For René, the fact that he almost lost his life ... to give life was an incredible achievement.
RD: Did you miss show business?
Dion: I needed a balance. When you're in show business for twenty-something years, at one point you need to have a normal life. It was just too much. After Beauty and the Beast and Titanic -- too much publicity, TV, radio, too much. I didn't want people to say, "Oh, my God, her again?!" And I don't miss show business at all. But when I got back in the recording studio and started to sing, something was there that had never left. I'm from Quebec, and when I leave my country, a piece of me stays there. Well, it's the same thing with show business. I stopped, but a part of me, this little candle stayed ...
RD: Your candle still stayed lit.
Dion: Yes. And when you sing one song after another over the years, it's all pretty much the same thing. But when you stop and enjoy life, and you have a child, it gives you something to sing about. It's refreshing.
RD: How did you arrive at the decision to come back? Had you given yourself a timetable?
Dion: I didn't want to stop my career for too, too long and have to rebuild the whole thing. At the same time, I needed more than six months off. We decided two years was fair. I'm glad the first try with the in vitro worked, because if it hadn't that would have pushed me even more. But it was always clear in my mind that I was going to come back.
RD: You're a different person now. You're a mother, you've done other things.
Is your show-business life going to be different?
Dion: Very different. I'm not going to be touring anymore. In March of 2003, we're going to move to Las Vegas for three years. There's no way that I can take the plane every night, leave the hotel every afternoon, do the sound check, eat, do my hair and makeup, stretch, do vocal exercises, do the show, get in the airplane again, next city, René-Charles, ear infections, and I'm not being able to be with my son. Every year is important, but the first years of a child are very, very important.
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