Celine Dion says she kept news of stiff person syndrome diagnosis under wraps to be a "hero" for her kids

Celine Dion has been battling with stiff person syndrome for the better part of 17 years, but the singer kept her rare disorder hidden for several years.

On Monday, June 10, The Today Show teaser featured Dion sitting down with Hoda Kotb to finally talk about her health struggles in person. She spoke about how her rare neurological disorder has affected her singing, and why she kept it under wraps for a long time.

The All By Myself singer admittedly kept her illness quiet, at least in the beginning, because she was still getting her head around what was happening to her health. She noted that they “didn’t know what was going on.”

On top of that, responsibilities as a wife and mother had led to the singer putting her health struggles on the back burner. She mentioned:

“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.”

Celine Dion has put her career on hold multiple times, and as it turns out, also her health, to care for her late husband who was undergoing treatment for throat cancer. This was around the time she first noticed symptoms of her condition.

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Celine Dion gets candid about her stiff person syndrome diagnosis and how the condition affected her voice

Celine Dion has now decided to further talk about her diagnosis, over one year after she announced the same via an Instagram video in December 2022. Talking about what changed and why she’s decided to be honest and open up about her diagnosis, the singer mentioned:

“Lying for me, the burden was too much. Lying to the people who got me where I am today. I could not do it anymore.”

In a separate clip of the Canadian singer’s interview with Hoda Kotb, she shares more details about her rare neurological disorder. Talking about the symptoms and their effects, Dion said:

“It’s like somebody’s strangling you. It’s like somebody is pushing your larynx/pharynx this way.”

The singer then raised her voice to give some context of how the feeling affects her singing. She continued:

“It was like talking like that, and you cannot go higher or lower. It gets into a spasm.”

Further, she described:

"It can also be abdominal, can be in the spine, can be in the ribs."

The My Heart Will Go On singer said that her condition has left parts of her body cramping or in a position where she can’t unlock them, including her fingers and feet. The muscle spasms, the singer said, can be so “severe” that, at one point, she had “broken ribs.”

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Dion’s appearance on The Today Show will air in full on Tuesday, June 11, at 10 pm ET.