The Love Story of Celine Dion and René Angélil, Who Didn’t Let Their Age Gap Stand in the Way of Love

If 2 souls are meant to be together, they’ll find each other no matter what. Celine Dion and René Angélil are proof that soulmates do exist and that a 26-year age difference can’t beat the vow, “In sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.”

While writing Celine and René’s story, we at Bright Side couldn’t keep our tears in check. So if you tend to get emotional about love stories, we recommend you keep a pack of tissues close by.

Celine met René for the first time in 1980.

After hearing Celine’s voice on a tape that one of her brothers sent to the 38-year-old renowned music manager, René Angélil, Celine received an invitation from him to audition in Quebec. From that moment, René started managing Celine’s career and poured all his hopes into it. He even mortgaged his house to finance Celine’s first album in 1981.

Thanks to René’s bold move, today Celene Dion is the best-selling Canadian recording artist and the best-selling French-language artist of all time.

They kept their relationship a secret at first.

When Celine was 18 years old, she started seeing René differently and developed romantic feelings for him. At night, she’d slip a photo of her future husband René under her pillow, hiding it from her mother with whom she shared a room.

In her autobiography, the singer wrote, “Less and less could I hide from myself the fact that I was in love with René; I had all the symptoms. I was in love with a man I couldn’t love, who didn’t want me to love him, who didn’t want to love me.”

Celine and René were always working and traveling together. One day, when they were in Dublin for the Eurovision song contest in 1988 (where Dion won 1st place), instead of an on-the-cheek goodnight kiss, René went for something more, and as he said himself, “Everything changed.” In an interview, when Celine was asked if she has fallen in love with René until then, she revealed “I was in love a long time before then.”

For several years, René and Celine’s relationship was known only to friends and family, as they feared that the public might find their 26 year age gap inappropriate.

Her mother didn’t approve of René.

Before Celine, René was married 2 times and had 3 children from his previous marriages. In 1985, when Celine was about 17 years old, he divorced his second wife, Anne-Marie Angélil.

When Celine was 19 years old, she revealed to her mother that she had romantic feelings for her manager, René. She was against it at first and tried to convince her daughter that René was not responsible, as he had 2 failed marriages and 3 children already.

After they started dating, René earned the love of Celine’s 13 siblings, and her mother eventually came around. “She had no choice. Love won.”

The couple married in a lavish wedding ceremony in 1994.

On Celine’s twenty-fifth birthday, they got engaged, and through the liner notes of her album, The Colour of My Love, they made their relationship public. On December 17, 1994, Celine and René said “I do” at the Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal, Quebec.

Celine’s world was shaken when René was diagnosed with throat cancer.

After discovering a lump in his throat in 1999, when René was 57 years old, the couple learned the devastating news. “When something like this happens to you, it hits you so hard,” Celine opened up in an interview at the time. “But I felt very strong because I said to myself, ’René needs me maybe for the first time in my life.’”

After the treatment, René made a full recovery, and the couple renewed their wedding vows in 2000 to celebrate the life they share.

The couple welcomed their first baby boy after years of fertility treatments.

After many failed attempts to conceive and 2 small operations at a fertility clinic, in 2001, Celine and René had their first bundle of joy, René-Charles Angélil. In 2010, after several in vitro fertilization treatments, the couple welcomed their fraternal twins into the world, Eddy and Nelson.

Celine stayed by her husband’s side until his last breath.

In 2013, when Celine was about to perform live on TV, she happened to get back to her dressing room, where she saw her husband looking shocked and devastated. That’s when she found out that René had heard from his doctor that he was facing throat cancer again.

Throughout René’s sickness, Celine took care of her beloved husband, and she has done it all by herself. Even though René wanted Celine to continue attending shows, she realized she couldn’t do both and took time off from her career to stay by his side until he passed away in 2016.

In an interview for ABC, Celine opened up about her loss and said, “I don’t live with him physically, but I live with him inside of me.”

Dion and René were married for 21 years.

Throughout their marriage, the couple stood together through thick and thin, through the good and bad times together, and most importantly — they kept their vows “til death do us part.” In an interview, Celine revealed the secret to her lasting marriage: “Communication. It’s key for marriage, for children, for anything.”

Do you believe that age has nothing to do with love? What is your secret to a lasting marriage?