Celine Dion Shares The Emotional Reason She Kept Her Coat On At The Grammys

Celine Dion is reflecting on her experience at this year’s Grammy Awards, an event which marked her unofficial return to the spotlight after going public with her stiff-person syndrome diagnosis nearly two years ago.

In a “Life in Looks” video interview to accompanyVogue France’s May issue, the French Canadian chanteuse described her surprise appearance as “very nerve-wracking, but at the same time, a big honor,” later gushing about the “magic” and “excitement” of returning to show business once more. And as it turns out, the much-discussed mustard yellow Valentino coat she wore over her pale-pink gown served a very specific, and emotional, purpose.

“I was like, ‘I can walk onstage with a coat?’ Oh, yeah! You can do whatever you want in fashion. Have a good time, wear that coat, own that coat, go for it,” Dion explained. “And it made me feel better for a moment to hold onto this coat, to hide myself a little bit from all these little things.”

She then broke into a song with a few impromptu lines from her 2019 single “Imperfections,” from her most recent album, “Courage.”

Watch Celine Dion’s “Life in Looks” interview with Vogue below. Her remarks on the Grammy Awards begin around the 12:04 mark.

Dion was greeted with a standing ovation as she walked out onstage ― accompanied by her 23-year-old son, René-Charles Angélil ― during the final moments of the Grammys, held Feb. 4 in Los Angeles, to present Taylor Swift with the award for album of the year.

It was one of just a handful of public appearances that Dion has made in several years, and by far the most high-profile. In December 2022, the five-time Grammy winner announced she’d been diagnosed with stiff-person syndrome, a rare and incurable neurological condition