The powerful pop superstar Celine Dion announced Friday morning d social media that she canceled the remainder of her Courage World Tour until April 2024 to focus on her recovery from a rare autoimmune and neurological disease.
Dion, 55, first publicly shared that she was struggling with the medical condition – called stiff person syndrome, which causes progressive stiffness and severe muscle spasms – in an emotional Instagram video she posted in December 2022, when she canceled or postponed a number of tour dates.
“I’m so sorry to disappoint you all once again,” Dion said in the statement Friday. “I’m working really hard to rebuild my strength, but touring can be very difficult even when you’re 100 percent. It’s not fair to you to keep postponing shows, and while it breaks my heart, it’s best that we cancel everything now until I’m truly ready to be back on stage again. I want you all to know, I’m not giving up…And I can’t wait to see you again!”
The remaining 2023 tour dates were scheduled to run from August 26 in Amsterdam to October 4 in Helsinki, Finland; then from 6 March 2024 in Prague to 22 April 2024 in London. According to the statement, tickets purchased for the canceled dates can be refunded via the original point of sale.
Before the pandemic put Dion’s tour on hold in March 2020, she had completed the first 52 dates of the tour in North America. “Unfortunately, these spasms affect every aspect of my daily life, sometimes causing difficulty when walking and not allowing me to use my vocal cords to sing as I’m used to,” she said in the video, which was published last year .
Dion can be seen in her first feature film role alongside Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Sam Heughan in the romantic comedy-drama Love Again, which was released this month.
After announcing her illness last year, Dion, known for her renditions of ballads like “Because You Loved Me” and “My Heart Will Go On,” was met with a remarkable outpouring of fans, especially in Quebec, the French-speaking Canadian province. where Dion was born.
