'Rene will always be with me, but I'm not in pain.'
Celine Dion is remembering her late husband.
In a pretaped interview that aired Thursday on CBS This Morning, the iconic 51-year-old singer sat down with Gayle King and revealed that she misses "everything" about her late husband and manager, Rene Angelil, who died in 2016.
"His smell. His touch. His way of making me laugh," Dion said. "It's, like, when I'm not on stage and my fans are home and I go in a hotel, for example, I don't have any pillow talk."
Despite that pain, Dion said she is open to finding love again. "Rene will always be with me, but I'm not in pain. Let go of the pain. Say yes. Say yes for dance. Say yes for friendship," she said. "Say yes for love maybe one day. I don't know."
"Are you open to it?" King asked Dion.
"Yes," Dion said. "I'm an open book… I'm open. Am I ready? No. Will it happen? I don't know. But I'm not stressed at all. I'm enjoying my life so much more now than ever before."
When ET spoke to Dion in September, she echoed those statements, noting that, though she'll "never find a love like Rene again," she is happy in her life.
"I am in love, I am in love with my life, I am in love with my children, I’m in love with my work. I love what I do today even more than before. Am I going to have a partner in my life? We'll stay tuned, and if I do, I will share it and it would be a pleasure to share it," she said. "It's a chapter that's closed, but it's not something that's dead. You evolve and maybe sometimes you meet a friend and it turns out into something bigger than that. Who knows and maybe not? But I will let you know. I promise."
Dion's CBS This Morning sit-down came ahead the release of her new album Courage, which is set to drop on Friday. The album and its accompanying tour are her first major foray into the music business since Angelil's death.
"I had to prove to myself that I could do it. I needed to prove to my family, my friends, the business people, the industry, the fans… that I can sing and continue on and not have only a hit, but a career," she said. "I feel like I can do anything I want. I've always been all right and I will always be all right."
"When I look back, my family went through a lot. Losing my husband, my manager, the father of my kids, my friend," she added. "I feel [Angelil's] vibration and his support."
One of the new ways she wanted to prove herself was behind the scenes, personally working on the production, planning and execution of her tour, something that Angelil had handled for her prior to his death.
"I've been so much involved, not only in my album, but into the production of this show. I say what I like, I have ideas. They can be tacky, wrong. I'm not asking to be right. I'm just asking to be heard," she said. "I did not want there [before Angelil's death]. I didn't want to be in the meetings. I just wanted to sing the best way that I could and that's it... But now Rene is not [here]."
In addition to wanting to prove her abilities, Dion wanted to start performing again, because it's what she loves.
"The adrenaline is like a drug. So that's why I keep doing it," she said. "It's addictive."
Performing, she also noted, has helped her heal.
"I'm so proud. I look at those kids and they're, like, 17 years old. And then I turn around, those people are 60 years old. And then I'm like, 'Wow. What's happening in my career?'" she said of the people attending her concerts. "And that is the greatest gift. They look at me... beyond the songs."
During Dion's ET interview, she also opened up about why she decided to title to her album and tour Courage.
"It represents a whole new life for me, my album, the tour, the way to dress, the way to say you can't please everyone," she said. "I dress for me; the way I feel. I want to feel that I feel great about myself, I feel strong about myself, I feel good about my decisions with the help of a lot of people, but it's all about courage and I think everyone should feel like that."
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