Woman in wheelchair at wedding mistaken for Celine Dion in viral video
The viral clip shows a Florida woman, not Celine Dion
(Reuters) - Footage of a mother being lifted out of her wheelchair and assisted in a wedding dance with her son is being shared online by people who have confused her for Canadian singer Celine Dion.
One Facebook user uploaded the video (here) alongside the caption: “This is Celine Dion attending her son's wedding in a wheelchair. She is suffering from a rare Condition known as Stiff-syndrome person. Oh, the Beautiful Celine Dion with her wonderful Vocal chords... Lesson to be learnt from her.”
Similar posts can be seen on Facebook (here and here) and Twitter (here).
Although Celine Dion announced in December 2022 that she had been diagnosed with Stiff-Person Syndrome (here), a rare neurological disorder that causes muscle spasms (as reported by Reuters here), she is not the person in the viral video.
The clip shows Florida woman Kathy Poirier, who has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) – also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease – a rare neurological disease that affects motor neurons (here), being lifted out of her wheelchair to dance with her son at his wedding, reports show (here and here).
Similar footage from a different angle was uploaded to Instagram by the wedding planner (here).
VERDICT
Miscaptioned. The viral clip shows a Florida woman, not Celine Dion, being helped out of her wheelchair to dance with her son at his wedding.
