advertisement
Music News

Watch Celine Dion’s Soulful, Impromptu Singalong With Sonyae Elise Backstage at the 2024 Grammy Awards

The pair got soulful at the first awards show appearance by Dion since her Stiff Person Syndrome diagnosis in Dec. 2022.

Céline Dion attends the 66th GRAMMY Awards at Crypto.com Arena on Feb. 4, 2024 in Los Angeles.

Céline Dion attends the 66th GRAMMY Awards at Crypto.com Arena on Feb. 4, 2024 in Los Angeles.

Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

Celine Dion couldn’t help breaking out into song at Sunday night’s 2024 Grammy Awards. Though the pop superstar has not performed in public since her 2022 reveal of a diagnosis of Stiff Person Syndrome, after a surprise appearance during the broadcast to present the evening’s final award — Taylor Swift’s record-breaking fourth album of the year trophy — the Canadian siren proved she hasn’t lost a note in a backstage video.

The clip posted by R&B singer Sonyae Elise, 26, on Tuesday captured the two vocalists doing a soulful duet amid the behind-the-scenes activity, with Elise clearly savoring the opportunity to harmonize and ad-lib as she and Dion, 55, took turns crooning the line “ain’t no tellin’ the world.”


advertisement

“Highlights of an ICONIC night [champagne flute emoji] So inspired & proud of my girls,” Elise captioned the video montage. The video also featured footage of the 2021 Grammy nominee hanging backstage and goofing around with SZA and Victoria Monét and filming Swift accepting her best pop vocal album Grammy for Midnights before surprise-announcing her upcoming The Tortured Poets Department album. The montage also included a clip of Dion singing to a delighted Stevie Wonder backstage.

Dion revealed in Dec. 2022 that she had been diagnosed with the rare neurological disorder that can cause uncontrolled muscle spasms that make it difficult to move. The “Power of Love” singer then postponed all of her planned 2023 tour dates — before canceling the outing — and retreated from the public eye amid a difficult period in which her sister, Claudette, revealed that the star had “no control” of her muscles.

During her onstage appearance and backstage videos from the Grammys, though, Dion showed no signs of weakness or difficulty singing. Before the Grammy pop-in, Dion was most recently seen in public at an NHL game in November in Las Vegas to support her hometown team, the Montreal Canadiens.

advertisement

Watch Elise’s video below.

This article was originally published by Billboard U.S.

advertisement
Major Music Streaming Companies Push Back Against Canadian Content Payments: Inside Canada's 'Streaming Tax' Battle
Photo by Lee Campbell on Unsplash
Streaming

Inside Canada's 'Streaming Tax' Battle

Spotify, Apple, Amazon and others are challenging the CRTC's mandated fee payments to Canadian content funds like FACTOR and the Indigenous Music Office, both in courts and in the court of public opinion. Here's what's at stake.

Some of the biggest streaming services in music are banding together to fight against a major piece of Canadian arts legislation – in court and in the court of public opinion.

Spotify, Apple, Amazon and others are taking action against the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)’s 2024 decision that major foreign-owned streamers with Canadian revenues over $25 million will have to pay 5% of those revenues into Canadian content funds – what the streamers have termed a “Streaming Tax.”

keep readingShow less
advertisement