Celine Dion is top of producers’ wish list to perform at the Eurovision Song Contest in May, when it will take place in Switzerland, where the superstar won the competition as a young performer 37 years ago.
Now 56, Dion was 20 years old in 1988 when she sang for Switzerland – qualifying for Swiss entry because the songwriters were Swiss – and beat the competition (the UK came second, just one point behind) with her song Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi.
This was the last time Switzerland won the Contest until last year, when they triumphed with Nemo’s The Code, which means – as is customary – they will be this year’s hosts for the event in May.
Now The Sun newspaper reports that producers believe there is no one more fitting to grace the stage than Dion. However, they quote an insider who says:
“We won’t know until a few weeks beforehand whether she feels fit enough.”
The French-Canadian chanteuse has been away from the stage for the last few years, revealing in an intimate documentary in 2024 that she had struggled to perform and had eventually been diagnosed with stiff person syndrome, hindering her movement and vocal abilities.
However, she thrilled fans with a surprise comeback performance at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics where she stood on the Eiffel Tower to sing flawlessly the romantic French classic Hymne a l’amour (‘Hymn to Love”).
Other big names to have performed in the interval at Eurovision in recent years include Justin Timberlake and Madonna, but neither have won the competition. Last year’s Swedish hosts were hoping Abba would make a return to the stage to mark 50 years since their victory with the song Waterloo, but fans had to make do with their ‘Abbatars’ – computer-generated lookalikes who have been performing in their purpose-built arena in London since 2022.
