For the second time this week during Paris Couture Week, Céline Dion became the star of a viral video. This time, however, the mood was noticeably different than the first when she was simply at a loss for words at how beautiful she found the Giorgio Armani Privé show to be. In Dion’s latest viral appearance, she was seen blotting her crying eyes with tissue as models walked out during Valentino creative head Pierpaolo Piccioli’s latest collection. While some assumed Dion was moved by the clothing once again, the reason why she was crying is much sweeter and sad.
The show’s soundtrack included Robert’s Flack’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” which is the song that she and her late husband René Angélil had their first dance to when they got married back in 1994 in one of the most lavish celebrity weddings to date. Angélil passed away on in 2016 and was buried on January 22, which was almost exactly three years to date from the show, giving the song all the more meaning for Dion.
Angélil died of a heart attack, but had been battling an illness for three years before his untimely death at 74. “For three years my husband did not have a sip of water or food,” Dion later explained of his final days. “He was eating through a tube. The only thing I hoped while he was in three years of agony. I wanted him to live in peace. I wanted him to feel so light and no worries. He had a little heart attack, it’s so quick, he didn’t even feel anything. I thought that he was like liberated from his pain.”
She has also said that Angélil is “the only man I’ve seen.” “The only man I’ve loved. The only man I’ve kissed… I fell in love with him immediately,” she said. “Not in the romance way, I was 12 years old. I was in love with the way he treated everyone around me, including my whole family and myself.”
Even though Angélil is no longer living, he is still a big part of Dion’s pre-show ritual every night, which includes shaking a bronze replica of his hand before hitting the stage. “I shake my husband’s hand and knock on wood with him every night before every show,” she told Stellar Magazine. “Even after he’s gone. I still talk to him. I’m trying to prove to him every day I’m fine. Our kids are growing, we feel strong. We’re good.”
