Celine Dion knows firsthand how explaining death to children can be tricky.
The singer’s husband, René Angélil died at 73 after a long battle with throat cancer on January 14, leaving her behind Dion with their three kids together; René-Charles, 15, and twins Eddy and Nelson, 5.
Faced with the heartbreaking task of getting her young children to understand what had happened the music legend said she turned to Disney.
Céline Dion and her sons René-Charle, 15, Eddy and Nelson, 5, wait as the casket of her late husband René Angélil at his funeral earlier this year.
“I asked for some books for children to help me to how to guide them through this. Especially the twins, of course,” the 48-year-old singer told Katie Couric in a sit down with Yahoo News. “And it kind of, like, shook me up so much. It was not my way of wanting to talk to my children.”
So Dion said she closed the books and turned to the animated movie, UP.
“Up saved my life,” Dion reveals. “I said, ‘What is the movie that Ellie died in?’ And they said, ‘Ellie died in the movie Up, Mum.’ I said, ‘That’s it. Ellie,’ I said. ‘Well, I want you to know listen to me.’ I said, ‘Papa is now with Ellie.'”
Disney Pixar UP.
Before her husband passed away Celine had opened up to USA Today about how her husband’s illness had left him unable to talk or swallow and he had to be fed via a tube. She said they had time to discuss his plans for his death.
“I’ll say, ‘You’re scared? I understand. Talk to me about it,'” Dion said. “And René says to me, ‘I want to die in your arms.’ OK, fine, I’ll be there, you’ll die in my arms.”
While she and her family are still very much in the mourning process in August Dion took to the stage to remember her husband with a touching performance of “My Heart Will Go On.”
Watch Celine Dion talk about how UP “saved” her
