{"id":614186,"date":"2026-09-12T21:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T21:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/614186\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T21:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T21:36:09","slug":"celine-dion-delivers-tearful-speech-on-opening-of-paris-residency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/614186\/","title":{"rendered":"Celine Dion Delivers Tearful Speech on Opening of Paris Residency"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tCeline Dion<\/a> shed tears as she kicked off her eagerly anticipated 16-date residency tonight at Plenitude Arena on the outskirts of Paris, marking her first major series of live shows since stepping away from the spotlight in 2022.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI had promised myself not to cry,\u201d Dion told thousands of adoring fans in the opening moments of her show. \u201cI don\u2019t keep my promises. But I\u2019m so happy to see you all. I missed you. I\u2019m going to sing like you without crying.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe later added, \u201cThank you so very much for coming. If it\u2019s your first time in Paris, I hope you fall in love with it just like I did. Finally, it\u2019s amazing we are all together. I made a promise to come back, to be back on stage. So here I am, singing for you and singing for me, singing live! Thank you so very much for your support, your patience and if I may say so, I am everything I am because you loved me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking of the uphill battle she waged with her health, Dion said, \u201cBy living with it day in and day out, I\u2019ve come to terms with it. And I\u2019ve decided to make it my reason for living.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe continued, \u201cBut look around here\u2014all around you, right here in this room\u2014we don\u2019t know what the person next to us is going through. There are people going through hardships, grief, and sorrow. There are people radiating energy and joy. So let\u2019s take that energy and share it. That\u2019s what music is for. Tonight, we\u2019ll sing, we\u2019ll dance, and we\u2019ll celebrate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring her final words of the night, Dion told the audience, \u201cThank you so much. I just fulfilled a dream.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tDion\u2019s arrival in Paris two weeks ago has dominated headlines and sparked a frenzy on social media as well as in the streets of the French capital. The metro station near the concert venue has also been renamed Celine and has been decorated with some of her most famous lyrics. Fans from every corner of the world have been camping in front of the Royal Monceau hotel behind security barriers and have been singing her more popular songs every time she comes out. Clips of Dion engaging with fans, singing a cappella with them and making some dance moves in front of the Parisian palace have gone viral.<\/p>\n

\n\tNot all of those hardcore fans will make it to the Paris concerts, however. Some may be turned away if they unknowingly bought fake tickets from the more than 200 fraudulent websites and social media accounts that popped up right when presale tickets went on sale in April, according to the Associated Press<\/a>, which quoted Group-IB, a Singapore-based cybersecurity firm.<\/p>\n

\n\tHer comeback isn\u2019t just being eagerly anticipated by fans \u2014 it\u2019s also being touted as a potential lifeline for France\u2019s state coffers heading into 2027. French newspaper Liberation dedicated the cover of its weekend edition to Dion\u2019s residency with a picture of the singer doing a prayerlike gesture, looking upward with a bright halo of light behind her and a headline that reads, \u201cCeline Dion \u2014 is she going to save the 2027 budget?\u201d Her Paris concerts could indeed generate \u20ac1 billion in economic impact for France, that\u2019s four times more than what Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s Paris concerts in June 2025 brought and roughly a fifth of what the entire Paris 2024 Olympics generated, according to French radio Europe 1.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tMore than 33,000 people are expected at the Plenitude Arena. As much as 60% of the set list is expected to be from her French repertoire, mainly songs penned and composed by Jean-Jacques Goldman, including \u201cPour que tu m\u2019aimes encore\u201d and \u201cJ\u2019irai o\u00f9 tu iras.\u201d She\u2019s also teased that her first show will last over two hours in an informal chat with fans in front of her hotel and told them to wear comfortable shoes, as reported by France Info.<\/p>\n

\n\tRumors have been circulating about a potential surprise duo with Beyonc\u00e9 who happens to be in the French capital with Jay-Z,\u00a0who gave a concert in Paris two days ago.<\/p>\n

\n\tAn estimated nine million people signed up for advance tickets for the shows after Dion announced her concert comeback <\/a>on her birthday, on March 30,\u00a0during a glamorous bash (which she didn\u2019t attend but delivered a message on video) in front of the Eiffel Tower, which was illuminated in tribute, with a choreographed light show set to Dion\u2019s greatest hits.<\/p>\n

\n\tDion made\u00a0her stage return singing Edith Piaf\u2019s \u201cHymne A L\u2019Amour\u201d\u00a0<\/a>by the Eiffel Tower at the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony.<\/p>\n

\n\tDion\u2019s Paris concerts were originally scheduled for 2020 at Paris La Defense Arena as part of her\u00a0Courage World Tour<\/a>, but were postponed due to the pandemic and then delayed again due to her health issues. In 2022, Dion was diagnosed with Stiff\u00a0Person Syndrome (SPS), a rare neurological and autoimmune disorder that causes muscular stiffness, inhibiting the ability to walk and sing. Her fans lost hope she would ever come back after seeing Dion struggle against this illness in the 2024 documentary\u00a0\u201cI Am: Celine Dion,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0which was directed by Irene Taylor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Celine Dion shed tears as she kicked off her eagerly anticipated 16-date residency tonight at Plenitude Arena on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,64037,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-614186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-celine-dion","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}