Celine Dion attends Katy Perry's finale in Las Vegas

Los Angeles, Nov 6 (IANS) Singer-songwriter Celine Dion, who has been out of sight dealing with a serious illness, is suddenly coming out in public in Las Vegas again — including an appearance as an audience member on the final night of Katy Perry‘s residency at the Resorts World Theatre, where Dion had to call off her own engagement two years ago.

The sight of Dion in the crowd for Perry’s swan song managed to get even more attention than the attendance of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, reports Variety.

Other luminaries seeing Perry off, according to news reports or fan videos, included Cameron Diaz and her husband, Good Charlotte member Benji Madden, and Zoe Saldana.

If Dion showing up for Perry was not a complete surprise, it was only because she’d been out earlier in the week, for a sporting event at the city’s T-Mobile Arena that involved some home-country pride, watching an NHL hockey game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Las Vegas Golden Knights.

As per Variety, Dion herself posted photos on Instagram of meeting players after the game, which was reported to be her first known public outing in three years.

Dion was scheduled to be part of the initial revolving lineup of performers, as heralded in a ubiquitous national TV campaign for Resorts World when it opened in 2021. An announcement from the new resort in October of that year said that unspecified medical reasons would keep her from starting her residency in November 2021 or doing dates into early 2022. 

Variety further states that it wasn’t until December last year that she officially announced that she was suffering from stiff person syndrome, identified by the NIH as “a rare, progressive neurological disorder” with symptoms that include muscle spasms. In May of this year, a world tour was cancelled.