Startling Spasm Footage Of Céline Dion Was Included In Raw Documentary ‘I Am: Celine Dion’ At Her Insistence

Céline Dion is granting the public insight into life with stiff-person syndrome.

At the start of the new documentary I Am: Celine Dion, which began streaming on Prime Video on Tuesday, viewers are met with the following disclaimer: “This film contains powerful scenes of medical trauma. Viewer discretion is advised.”

The end of the documentary features Dion at a physical therapy session, during which she experiences a spasm in her foot. After she lies down on her stomach on a massage table, her physical therapist explains that “this gives us an indication” that her “brain is overstimulated and there’s something going on.”

“And she keeps spasming,” he continues. “That could lead to a crisis.”

He eventually says that she’s “going into seizure,” and moves Dion, who is visibly and audibly in pain, on to her side. While doing so, he asks her to lift her head, but she is unable to move. Tears emerge from Dion’s eyes, as she groans and her body quivers.

She ultimately is given nasal spray, which Dion’s neurologist and director of the autoimmune neurology program at the University of Colorado School of Medicine Anschutz Medical Campus, Dr. Amanda Piquet, told TODAY.com was “benzodiazepine nasal spray.” Piquet also highlighted that what Dion experienced was “not a seizure,” but rather “a spasm that is occurring, and patients are aware of what’s going on.”

“Every time something like this happens, it makes you feel so embarrassed, and so, like, I don’t how to express it, like, it’s just… to not have control of yourself,” Dion says in the doc.

Director Irene Taylor explained to Yahoo! Entertainment that after viewing the scene, Dion “didn’t want [her] to change anything,” per the New York Post. After recalling that they “responded as quickly as we could” and that she “was holding a microphone [and used it] to gauge if she was breathing or not,” she highlighted that the experience was “very upsetting.”

“I know it’s hard on some viewers, it was hard on me too,” she continued. “But I will tell you that Celine felt validated to see herself like that and she thought it would help her if other people could understand what [SPS] is like.”

While Taylor “truly thought it was so unlikely” that Dion would experience an episode while filming, she told Yahoo! Entertainment, “If it does happen, [Celine] told me over and over again, ‘Don’t ask me permission to film, just keep rolling and we can talk about it later.’ Just because you film something doesn’t mean the world needs to see it. It’s very private.”

Taylor reiterated this to other outlets, such as Salon.com, recalling that once Dion saw an edited version of the scene for the first time, “she specifically said, ‘Don’t take one second away.'”

Dion was diagnosed with stiff person syndrome in 2022. She spoke with Today‘s Hoda Kotb in her first TV interview since her diagnosis titled Celine’s Story: An NBC News Special with Hoda Kotb, which aired on June 11.

In the trailer for the doc, Dion confesses that “it’s been a struggle,” noting that she misses singing and seeing people.

I Am: Celine Dion is now streaming on Prime Video. Watch the trailer above.