Rise to Fame
A homemade cassette, recorded at age 12 by a girl with 13 siblings, landed on Rene Angelil's desk. He mortgaged his house to fund her first album. She won Eurovision in 1988 representing Switzerland, not Canada, then crossed into the English market in 1990. Then Titanic happened. 'My Heart Will Go On' wasn't just a hit, it was inescapable. She moved roughly 250 million albums over her career.
In the Spotlight
From the Eiffel Tower, before an estimated 300,000 people at the Paris Olympics opening ceremony in July 2024, she sang 'L'Hymne a L'Amour' for the first time in years. Stiff Person Syndrome, a rare neurological condition, had taken her off stage entirely after 2022. Her Amazon documentary showed her having full-body convulsions on camera. Before the diagnosis, her two Vegas residencies had grossed $681 million total across more than 1,000 shows. Nobody expected her to come back. She came back on the Eiffel Tower.
Side Notes
Her manager married her. Rene Angelil, who first signed her at 12, became her husband, 26 years her senior. He died of throat cancer on January 14, 2016. Her brother Daniel died of cancer two days later. She named her twin sons Eddy and Nelson, after French songwriter Eddy Marnay and Nelson Mandela. Her childhood classmates called her 'Vampire.'