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Louise Thomas
Editor
Celine Dion made a surprise appearance during a live broadcast of NBC and Peacock’sSunday Night Football in the US over the weekend, in which she was doused with buckets of the energy drink Gatorade.
The Canadian star, who has been making a gradual comeback since her diagnosis with Stiff Person Syndrome, popped up in a filmed opening sequence that kicked off Sunday’s (6 October) game between the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers.
Paying tribute to American football, Dion began by explaining what she loved about the game: “Its power to connect who we are, to who we were. To prove that our most powerful memories, our most enduring loves, can stay with us forever.”
The camera then panned to reveal the “My Heart Will Go On” singer wearing a sweatshirt from Super Bowl XXX in 1996, featuring the logos of both the Cowboys and the Steelers.
“You know what I’m talking about, right?” Dion asked her audience. “Sometimes, some nights, it all just comes back.”
The clip was interspersed with footage of previous games between the two teams, who have played in three Super Bowls – more than any other rivalry.
“Their love affair – well, maybe not the love the way I usually sing about it, but still, you know, work with me here,” Dion joked.
“I mean, ‘When you touch me like this. When you hold me like that.’ It kind of fits, no? But really what beautiful passion it produced, what painful heartbreak it revealed so, so long ago.
“Like so many old flames, it always feels right when they’re back together. Don’t you think? Like tonight evoking the kind of magic they once produced, the Cowboys and the Steelers, a timeless classic on Sunday night.”
The pop icon was then doused in buckets of the energy drink Gatorade, as winning coaches often are at the end of a game.
Reacting to the clip, one fan wrote on X/Twitter: “Queen mother Celine Dion getting splashed by Gatorade is going to be one of the weirdest yet iconic things she has ever done. Love [you] Celine.”
Another said: “My parents are very confused about why they poured Gatorade on Celine Dion and I don’t have the answers to satisfy them.”
In July, Dion made her triumphant comeback to live performing at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics.
The Canadian artist left viewers in tears as she performed from the Eiffel Tower on 26 July, singing a rendition of Edith Piaf’s “L’Hymne à l’amour”.
It marked Dion’s first performance since 2022, when she was forced to cancel her world tour after being diagnosed with Stiff Person Syndrome, a rare and incurable disorder that causes rigidity in the torso and limbs, along with painful muscle spasms.
She addressed her struggles with the condition in an emotional documentary, I Am: Celine Dion, which was released in June.
