Celine Dion Says Husband Rene Is a 'Champ' Battling Throat Cancer

"It's hard because life imposes things on you," the singer said.

ByABC News
May 21, 2015, 5:18 PM

— -- Celine Dion has a positive update on how her husband Rene Angelil is doing in his battle with throat cancer.

"Rene's doing really well. We know the path that he's going, the treatments," she told Entertainment Tonight. "I knew he was amazing. He's such a champ. He's working hard on that."

Dion, 47, took almost a year off to be with her husband, 73, of more than 20 years and said being with him and the family was "not hard."

"It's hard because life imposes things on you," she added. "Sickness and you have no choice but to deal with them. I've been with him all my life and he's showed me the way many times."

She said she will be back on stage in August.

"He wants me back. He wants me strong and this is what we're doing together," she said.

Back in March, Dion was candid about how tough her husband's cancer had been.

“He can’t eat so I feed him,” Dion told ABC News. “He’s got a feeding tube. I have to feed him three times a day.”

Angélil, who stepped down as Dion’s manager in June because of his health, has been battling throat cancer for 15 years. Dion said it was in December 2013, just as she was about to appear on national television, that she found out her husband’s cancer had returned.

“I went back in my dressing room and I saw him looking pretty devastated, in shock, and I was like, ‘What’s going on,’” Dion recalled. “He said, ‘I have cancer again. The doctor just called me and I have cancer again.’