Stiff-person syndrome affects less than 5,000 people in the U.S. and is twice as common in women as in men.
Topline
Celine Dion announced Friday she has canceled her upcoming world tour as the five-time Grammy Award winning singer tries to “build back strength” following her diagnosis with stiff-person syndrome, a rare muscular disorder affecting less than 5,000 people in the U.S., but with no known cure.Key Facts
Dion, a Canadian pop and ballad singer known for singing “The Power of Love” and “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now,” and whose hit “My Heart Will Go On” from the 1997 blockbuster Titanic became an instant bestseller, announced in an Instagram post that she has canceled all remaining 2023 and 2024 dates in her Courage World Tour.
In her announcement, Dion said the tour dates, which run through April 2024, will be canceled “until I’m ready to be back on stage again” and tickets for the 42 shows she had planned in Europe will be refunded.
The cancellation comes nearly five months after Dion first postponed 2023 tour dates when she announced she had been diagnosed with the condition, an autoimmune disorder that affects the brain and spinal cord, causing people to develop “abnormal, often hunched-over postures” and on occasion hindering people’s ability to walk, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
