Interviewee: Celine Dion
Interviewer: Barbara Walters
Date: 2002

Whether she is singing in French or English, Celine Dion has meted out a singing talent that has acquired the vastness of fan support and the veneration of peers.

Either way, Celine Dion is one of the richest entertainers on earth according to Forbes magazine, having sold more than 100 million records worldwide. Initially, Dion was a prolific Francophone artist, whose album was certified gold in France in 1983, the first Canadian ever to do so.

With the release of Unison, her first English-language album, in 1990, the Anglophone market was finally introduced to Dion. In time, Walt Disney Records got wind of her, and paired her with Peabo Bryson for the chartbusting title song of the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack. Her career crux in the US then arrived with “The Power of Love”, which sat atop the US charts for four weeks.

Celine Dion’s watershed masterpiece was then released in March 1996—the seminal Falling Into You album, which contains tunes like “Because You Loved Me” and “All By Myself.” Selling 25 million copies and ascending to number one in eleven nations, Falling Into You was promptly named Album of the Year in the 39th Grammy Awards.

Through Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”, Titanic became as supreme a movie as a soundtrack. No other orchestral soundtrack in history has sold more than Titanic, with 27 milllion copies sold. It even gave Celine Dion her first Oscar for Best Original Song since “Beauty And The Beast.” “My Heart Will Go On” also appeared on her next album, Let’s Talk About Love, which replicated the sales of the soundtrack.

After gathering her biggest hits in All The Way…A Decade of Song, Dion brought new studio material, A New Day Has Come, in March 2002. A concert of the same name had since been staged at the massive, state-of-the-art Colosseum of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

Dion’s last studio materials are One Heart, Miracle, and Taking Chances, released in 2007.