Celine Dion reveals shocking fact about Titanic movie

One star just made a behind-the-scenes admission about James Cameron’s Titanic that drew gasps from a talk show’s studio audience.

Celine Dion revealed that she almost passed on recording the song that would become one of her biggest, career-defining hits – My Heart Will Go On.

The song, which provided the score for the 1997 hit film, Titanic, thrust the already-famous star’s career to new heights. However, Dion, 51, admitted to talk show host Andy Cohen on an episode of Watch What Happens Live this week that her initial reaction was to turn down the song.

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“There was one song that I didn’t want to record, and I’m glad they didn’t listen to me,” she said in response to a fan question. “My Heart Will Go On.”

“It is true,” she added after the audience gasped.

The song soundtracked one of cinema’s greatest love stories …

… and won Dion a slew of awards. Picture: AP

“It didn’t appeal to me. I was probably very tired that day — very tired,” Dion continued. “My husband (the late René Angélil) said, ‘Let’s hold on’. He talked to the writer and he said, ‘Let’s try to make it, like, a little demo’.”

Reluctantly, she agreed to sing the song as a demo. Due to her tepid interest in singing it, though, composer James Horner and writer Will Jennings constructed the film’s score around Dion’s original recording, which she admitted became the final version.

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“I sang the song once and they built the orchestra around it. I never re-sang it for the recording. So the demo is the actual recording,” she recalled, joking, “but after that, I’ve sang it about three gazillion times.”

As People notes, the song debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1998. It put the film’s soundtrack at No. 1 for a massive 16-week run and sold more than 15 million copies worldwide. It also took home the Oscar for best original score and won record of the year at the Grammys that year.

TITANIC: OTHER FACTS YOU NEVER KNEW

Poisoned chowder: During filming, 80 crew members were violently ill and many were rushed to hospital when someone spiked a pot of lobster chowder with an illicit hallucinogen drug called angel dust. Leo, Kate and that grandma (Gloria Stuart) didn’t eat any of the chowder.

Extras: James Cameron wanted the film’s 150 main extras to behave exactly like people did back in 1912, so he hired an etiquette specialist to coach them all. A short film called A Time Traveller’s Guide was made that taught the extras how to walk and eat properly. It was played on loop in the wardrobe room.

Alternative ending: A second ending to the movie was filmed, and no, not one where the Titanic doesn’t sink. In the alternative version, Brock Lovett (played by Bill Paxton) spots Rose dropping the necklace into the ocean and rushes over to confront her and convince her not to do it. But the old lady does it anyway, much to the shock and disappointment of the crew.

THAT drawing: One of the most memorable scenes in the movie (for teenage boys at least) is when Rose poses nude and Jack sketches her. If you watched the film and thought to yourself, “Wow, that DiCaprio fella can really draw!” well, guess what, it wasn’t Leo doing the drawing. It was actually director James Cameron who was the man behind the pencil.

Fun fact: In 2011 the sketch was sold at auction for more than $20,000.

This article originally appeared on Fox News and was reproduced with permission