Celine Marie Claudette Dion,  ChLD (; French: [selin djo]; born 30 March 1968) is a Canadian singer. Born into a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband Rene Angelil mortgaged his home to finance her first record. Dion first gained international recognition in the 1980s by winning both the 1982 Yamaha World Popular Song Festival and the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest where she represented Switzerland.

Dion was born in Charlemagne, Quebec, the youngest of 14 children of Therese (nee Tanguay), a homemaker, and Adhemar Dion, a butcher, both of French-Canadian descent. Dion 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; indeed, Dion herself was named after the song "Celine," which French singer Hugues Aufray had recorded two years before her own birth. On 13 August 1973, at the age of five, the young Celine 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." From an early age, Dion had dreamed of being a performer. In a 1994 interview with People magazine, 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."  At age 12, Dion collaborated with her mother and her brother Jacques to write and compose her first song, "Ce n'etait qu'un reve," whose title translates as "It Was Only a Dream" or "Nothing But A Dream." Her brother Michel sent the recording to music manager Rene Angelil, whose name he discovered on the back of a Ginette Reno album. Angelil 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 Dion 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, Japan, 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'amitie" ("Of Love or of Friendship"), Dion had also won several Felix Awards, including "Best Female performer" and "Discovery of the Year". Further success came when Dion 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, Ireland.  At age eighteen, after seeing a Michael Jackson performance, Dion told Angelil that she wanted to be a star like Jackson. Though confident in her talent, Angelil realized that her image needed to be changed in order for her to be marketed worldwide. Dion receded from the spotlight for a number of months, during which she underwent dental surgery to improve her appearance, and was sent to the Ecole Berlitz in 1989 to polish her English.  In 1989, during a concert on the Incognito Tour, Dion 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.

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