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Céline Marie Claudette Dion ( say-LEEN dee-ON; born 30 March 1968) is a Canadian singer. Referred to as the "Queen of Power Ballads", she is noted for her powerful and technically skilled vocals. Her music has incorporated genres such as pop, rock, R&B, gospel, and classical music. Her recordings have been mainly in English and French, although she has also sung in Spanish, Italian, German, Latin, Japanese, and Chinese. Born into a large family in Charlemagne, Quebec, Dion was discovered by her future manager and husband René Angélil, and emerged as a teen star in her home country with a series of French-language albums during the 1980s. She gained international recognition by winning the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest, where she represented Switzerland with "Ne partez pas sans moi". Her debut English-language album, Unison (1990), established her as a viable pop artist primarily in North America and several English-speaking markets, while The Colour of My Love (1993) gave her global superstardom. Dion continued her success throughout the 1990s with several of the bestselling English-language albums in history, such as Falling into You (1996) and Let's Talk About Love (1997), which were certified diamond in the US with more than 30 million sales worldwide each. She also released a series of international number-one hits, including "The Power of Love", "Think Twice", "Because You Loved Me", "It's All Coming Back to Me Now", "I'm Your Angel", "That's the Way It Is", "I'm Alive" and "My Heart Will Go On", the theme for the 1997 film Titanic, which solidified her popularity. Dion continued releasing French-language albums between each English record; D'eux (1995) became the best-selling French-language album of all time, while S'il suffisait d'aimer (1998), Sans attendre (2012), and Encore un soir (2016), were all certified diamond in France. During the 2000s, she built her reputation as a successful live performer with A New Day... on the Las Vegas Strip (2003–07), the highest-grossing concert residency of all time, and the Taking Chances World Tour (2008–09), one of the highest-grossing concert tours of the 2000s. In 2009, she was named by the Los Angeles Times as the top-earning artist of the decade, with combined album sales and concert revenue exceeding $747 million. With 200 million records sold worldwide, Dion is the best-selling Canadian recording artist and the best-selling French-language artist in music history and one of the best-selling musical artists of all time. She is the sixth most successful female artist in the history of US Billboard 200 and received recognition from the IFPI for selling over 50 million albums in Europe. Seven of her albums have sold at least 10 million copies worldwide, the second most among women in history. She was ranked as the fourth most outstanding pop vocalist by Cover Magazine and the ninth greatest voice in music by MTV. One of the highest-grossing touring artists in history, she is the second woman to accumulate US$1 billion in concert revenue. Forbes has named her the annual top-earning female musician four times across two decades (1990s–2000s). Dion has also received two honorary doctorates in music degree from Berklee College of Music and Université Laval. Life and career 1968–1989: Early life and career beginnings Dion was born in Charlemagne, Quebec, 24 kilometres (15 mi) northeast of Montreal, the youngest of 14 children of Thérèse (née Tanguay, 1927–2020), a homemaker, and Adhémar Dion (1923–2003), a butcher, both of French descent. She was raised a Roman Catholic in a poor but, by her own account, happy home in Charlemagne. Music had always been a major part of the Dion family, and she was named after the song "Céline", which French singer Hugues Aufray had recorded two years before her birth. On 13 August 1973, she made her first public appearance at her brother Michel's wedding, where she performed Christine Charbonneau's song "Du fil, des aiguilles et du coton". She continued to perform with her siblings in her parents' small piano bar called Le Vieux Baril, "The Old Barrel". She suffered a number of accidents as a young child, including an incident at five years old when she was struck by a car as her father and brother Clément looked on. She was hospitalized briefly with a concussion. From an early age, she had dreamed of being a performer. In a 1994 interview with People, she recalled, "I missed my family and my home, but I don't regret having lost my adolescence. I had one dream: I wanted to be a singer." As a child in Quebec, Dion participated in Girl Guide programs as a member of Girl Guides of Canada. At age 12, she collaborated with her mother and her brother Jacques to write and compose her first song, "Ce n'était qu'un rêve", whose title translates as "It Was Only a Dream" or "Nothing But A Dream". Michel sent the recording to music manager René Angélil, whose name he discovered on the back of a Ginette Reno album. Angélil was moved to tears by Dion's voice and decided to make her a star. In 1981, he mortgaged his home to fund her first record, La voix du bon Dieu, which later became a local No. 1 hit and made her an instant star in Quebec. Her popularity spread to other parts of the world when she competed in the 1982 Yamaha World Popular Song Festival in Tokyo and won the musician's award for "Top Performer" as well as the gold medal for "Best Song" with "Tellement j'ai d'amour pour toi". By 1983, in addition to becoming the first Canadian artist to receive a gold record in France for the single "D'amour ou d'amitié" ("Of Love or of Friendship"), Dion had also won several Félix Awards, including "Best Female performer" and "Discovery of the Year". Further success came when she represented Switzerland in the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Ne partez pas sans moi" and won the contest by a close margin in Dublin. At age 18, after seeing a Michael Jackson performance, Dion told Angélil she wanted to be a star like Jackson. Though confident in her talent, Angélil realized her image needed to be changed for her to be marketed worldwide. She receded from the spotlight for a number of months, during which she underwent dental surgery to improve her appearance, and was sent to the École Berlitz in 1989 to improve her English. In 1989, during a concert on the Incognito tournée, she injured her voice. She consulted the otorhinolaryngologist William Gould, who gave her an ultimatum: have immediate surgery on her vocal cords or do not utilize them at all for three weeks. Dion chose the latter and underwent vocal training with William Riley. 1990–1992: Unison, Dion chante Plamondon, and Celine Dion Two years after she learned English, Dion made her debut into the Anglophone market with Unison (1990), the lead single having originally been recorded by English singer Junior in 1983 and later Laura Branigan. She incorporated the help of producers including Vito Luprano and David Foster. The a.... 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