Nelson Angélil – Celine Dion’s Son Faced Tragedy Early
Let's take a look at Nelson Angélil, the son of Celine Dion and how tragedy has been part of his early life.
When you are the son of a singing legend, it has certain privileges. For instance, when your mother closes out her long Las Vegas residency, you get to go out on stage and close it out with her. When your mother’s net worth is creeping closer and closer to the $1 billion mark, there are trips around the world, multiple homes, and yes, even Disneyland to deal with. So, let’s take a quick peek behind the curtain and find out who Nelson Angélil is and just who his super famous, super wealthy, and super talented mother is as well.
NELSON ANGÉLIL – THE SON OF A SINGING LEGEND
When we are talking about big names in the music business, Nelson Angélil’s mom is “Titanic” big. If that hint isn’t enough for you, well then let us put your mind at ease. His mom is Celine Dion, owner of 27 studio albums of which 15 are French-language albums and 12 English-language albums. Dion will have a 13th English-language album, Viva Las Vengeance, that is set to be released on August 19, 2022.
HOW OLD IS NELSON ANGÉLIL?
Nelson Angélil’s path to birth was not a simple one. Dion and her late husband, René Angélil, never had luck with conceiving, so they opted for in vitro fertilization. In 2009, Dion suffered a miscarriage, but in May 2010, Dion and Angelil announced that they were expecting. This came after a sixth treatment of in vitro fertilization. On October 23, 2010, the now 11-year-old Nelson was born.
DOES HE HAVE ANY SIBLINGS?
Not only does the young Nelson Angélil have siblings, but he is also a twin. His twin brother, who is a cool one-minute old, is named Eddy. Nelson also has an older brother, René-Charles Angélil, who is nine years older than the twins.
There were many who thought that the twins, Nelson and Eddy, were named after the popular opera singer/actor from the 1930s and 1940s, Nelson Eddy. He was popular for films such as Maytime, Sweethearts, New Moon, and the 1943 version of The Phantom of the Opera. Eddy’s most popular film at the time was Rose Marie, a film he starred in with Jeanette MacDonald. The duo made famous the song, Indian Love Call. But that wasn’t the case.
Eddy, in fact, got his name from Eddy Marnay, the producer of Dion’s first five albums. “He was like a father to her,” One of Dion’s reps explained via CBS News. “Eddy is a major influence in both Celine and Rene’s lives.” As for Nelson, both Dion and her late husband decided on the name after former South African President Nelson Mandela. Dion had met the man two years prior when she kicked off her world tour in South Africa.
“Rene said that in just the few minutes they were able to spend with him, they were impressed by the human being he is,” Dion’s rep again explained at the time. “Celine and Rene want their children to be inspired by their names, because they were so inspired by these men.” Landing on those names was not the easiest of decisions. Dion once explained to Gala, a French magazine, that she and Rene had a very difficult time coming up with names for the twins. She said her mother wanted the twins to have French names and her son René-Charles, who was nine years old at the time, wanted his brothers to have American names.
TRAGEDY TIMES TWO
Nelson Angélil, at this point in his life, is pretty well set financially, since he and his brother Eddy are boosted by his mother’s $800 million net worth. But while the youngest of Dion’s children doesn’t have to yet worry about money, it doesn’t mean that his young life has been smooth sailing. In fact, it has been beset with way too much tragedy.
Nelson’s father, Rene, was 26 years older than Celine. The pair met when Celine was 12 years old, and he was 38. Celine’s brother, Michel Dondalinger Dion, had sent him a tape of Celine singing and Rene became her manager. Their relationship, though, was something Dion recognized as she got into her later teens. She was becoming more and more infatuated with the man. “Before I fell asleep, I slipped it under the pillow, out of fear that my mother, who always shared a room with me, would find it,” Dion wrote in her 2000 autobiography, My Story, My Dream. She then said, Less and less could I hide from myself the fact that I was in love with Rene; I had all the symptoms.” It was then that Celine realized, “I was in love with a man I couldn’t love, who didn’t want me to love him, who didn’t want to love me.”
Eventually, though, the pair would finally begin a relationship when Dion turned 20. They were able to keep the relationship quiet for five years with only family and close friends knowing the two were together. 13 years after the two met, they became engaged. Rene asked her on Celine’s 25th birthday. They were married in December 1994.
In 1998, Nelson Angélil’s father, René, was diagnosed with throat cancer. He had a tumor removed from his throat and had recovered. The cancer, though, returned and in 2013, René retired as Dion’s manager because his health worsened. In 2015, Celine revealed how bad things had physically turned out for her husband. “He can’t use his mouth. He can’t eat so I feed him,” she explained at the time via The Sydney Morning Herald. “He’s got a feeding tube. I have to feed him three times a day. I do this myself. So, I feed my husband, then I feed my kids.”
René lasted until January 14, 2016, when he finally succumbed to throat cancer. The family was devastated, though this devastation wasn’t the last of it. Two days after Celine, René-Charles, Eddy, and Nelson lost their father, they also lost their uncle, Daniel Dion, to cancer as well.
Six years after her husband’s death and Celine remains a single woman. Much of her time, when she isn’t performing, is focused on raising Eddy and Nelson. She did confess, though, that she does miss the closeness her husband brought to her. “I don’t date. I’m not ready to date. I’m very lucky and happy to have so many people in my surrounding to make me — they make me laugh, but I miss to be touched,” she said to Closer Weekly. “I miss to be hugged. I missed to be told, ‘You’re beautiful.’ I miss what a boyfriend and I miss what a husband would do.”
NELSON ANGÉLIL IS “LIVING” LARGE
Along with not having to worry about finances right now, Nelson Angélil doesn’t have to worry much about where he is living. For the first seven years of his life, Nelson and his siblings resided in a few homes. Celine and Rene had an 8,000-square-foot mansion in Las Vegas, a $10 million spread in Paris, France, and they also had a lavish mansion located on Jupiter Island in South Florida. Dion held on to the latter property until after her husband passed away, then she sold it for $38.5 million in 2017.
Nelson Angélil is still just an 11-year-old. As the son of a singing legend and a twin as well, life for Nelson leans more toward the extraordinary side even though he has seen way too much tragedy in his brief 11 years. By all accounts and with his mother and brother’s help, they all appear to be adjusting accordingly and that is all we can hope for.
