Céline Dion has shared details about her cancer-stricken husband René Angélil’s suffering prior to his death in January 2016.
“For three years my husband did not have a sip of water or food. He was eating through a tube,” the singer told Australia’s The Project.
“The only thing I hoped while he was in three years of agony… I wanted him to live in peace. I wanted him to feel so light and no worries.”
Dion said Angélil’s “little heart attack” brought an end to the suffering. “It's so quick, he didn't even feel anything,” she said. “I thought that he was like liberated from his pain.”
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Repeating that Angélil was the only man she ever loved, Dion recalled the feelings she had even as a young girl.
“I fell in love with him immediately. Not in the romance way, I was 12 years old,” she said. “I was in love with the way he treated everyone around me, including my whole family and myself.”
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Dion said her mother did not approve of their subsequent relationship. “It was not the person that she wanted for me. And I don't blame her.
“I said ‘mum, I really love him. It hurts inside.’”
Dion and Angélil were married when she was 26 and he was 52. They welcomed son René-Charles, now 17, and twins Eddy and Nelson, now 7.