“Shaking Is the Feeling of a Survivor”: Celine Dion’s Son Reframes Criticism of His Mother’s Post-SPS Voice
OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Celine Dion’s voice — once an emblem of laser-like projection and precise control — is being compared by one disappointed former listener to an “old record player,” described as shaky and lacking strength. The comment triggered a sharp and deeply personal response from her 21-year-old son René-Charles Angélil, who insisted that any vocal quiver today is not a flaw, but a physical and emotional signature of someone who survived 24 months of neurological lockdown.
“My mother just overcame her stiff body syndrome after 2 years of not being able to sing,” he said. “Shaking? That’s the feeling of a survivor, not a technical error.”
His reaction places the public discussion back into medical reality.
Stiff-Person Syndrome — which Celine confirmed in late 2022 — is an exceptionally uncommon neurological condition that produces involuntary rigidity, distressing spasms, unpredictable loss of control, and hypersensitivity to stimuli. In Dion’s case it forced the indefinite halt of the Courage World Tour and required continuous therapy focused on mobility and controlled muscle response.
Against that clinical backdrop, the presence of tremor cannot simply be judged by a pre-diagnosis standard. It is, instead, the audible consequence of a body retraining its own neurological communication system.
Comparisons between Dion’s stage power in the mid-1990s — when she routinely navigated complex modulations while touring Falling Into You — and her physical reality in 2024 will naturally show contrast. But the true dividing line is not artistic “rise vs. decline.” It is “before illness vs. after surviving it.”
The social media micro-debate demonstrates how quickly public perception tends to assess sound without acknowledging the biological structure that produces it.
René-Charles’s remark makes one central editorial point: sometimes what is interpreted as imperfection is actually proof of a fight won — not a craft lost.
