Celine Dion took drug dosage that ‘could have been fatal’ in bid to battle disease symptoms

Celine Dion has revealed that at the beginning of her battle with Stiff Person Syndrome, she made a choice that could have cost her life.

Celine Dion has revealed that she was taking a potentially lethal dosage of valium daily.

Dion has been battling stiff-person syndrome in recent years, a debilitating condition that has stopped her from being able to perform.

In an exclusive interview with TODAY, singer Celine Dion reveals why she decided to come forward with her diagnosis for stiff person syndrome. "I could not do this anymore," she says, adding, "Lying for me, the burden was too much." Picture: NBC

The Grammy winner has revealed that to help control symptoms, she started with 20-milligram doses of valium, which can curb muscle spasms and seizures.

Adult doses of the drug typically are between 2 to 10 milligrams.

However, as her body became accustomed to that dose, Dion said, she’d end up having to increase her dosage to dangerously high levels — up to 90 milligrams on some days.

“Ninety milligrams of Valium can kill you. You can stop breathing,” Dion told Hoda Kotb on US TV station NBC’s Today breakfast show.

“And at one point, the thing is that my body got used to it at 20 and 30 and 40 [milligrams], until it went up. And I needed that. It was relaxing my whole body.”

Dion was eventually able to cut down on the dosage when the world went into lockdown and she no longer needed to perform or work.

“I stopped everything with the help of doctors, because when you taper these drugs, you can, you can die, as well,” she said. “You cannot just, like, stop everything”.

Dion chose to keep her health battle secret from the world for years before finally sharing her journey in 2022. Photo: Valerie Macon / AFP.

The singer began showing symptoms during her Taking Chances world tour in 2008, during which she experienced stiffness in the body and limbs as well as debilitating muscle spasms. It wasn’t until 2022 that she went public with her health battle.

“I did not take the time. I should have stopped, take the time to figure it out,” she said, recalling that at the time she began showing signs of her disorder, her husband René Angélil was undergoing treatment for throat cancer.

“My husband as well was fighting for his own life,” she said. “I had to raise my kids, I had to hide. I had to try to be a hero, while feeling my body leaving me. [I was] holding on to my own dreams.”

Angélil – the father of her sons René-Charles, 23, and twins Nelson and Eddy, 13 – sadly passed away in 2016.

Hiding her health issues was Dion’s way of trying process her emotions about her declining health, but it eventually got too much for the singer. “I could not do this anymore,” she said. “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.”