At last night’s American Music Awards, Celine Dion graced the stage and performed a touching rendition of French superstar Edith Piaf’s “Hymme à L’Amour” as a tribute to the victims of the Paris attacks that occurred on November 13.
Musician, Academy Award-winning actor and former member of the man bun elite Jared Leto introduced Dion. Leto detailed his past experiences performing with his band 30 Seconds to Mars at the Bataclan concert hall and explained how the vicious killings of 130 people, including 89 at the Bataclan, have changed Paris and the world forever.
Dion ascended the stage after Leto’s speech in a floral black dress, against a backdrop of some of Paris’s most breathtaking views and images of candlelight vigils in memory of the French capital’s victims. And when Dion projected her final soaring note at the end of the four-minute performance, there wasn’t a single person at the award show or at home who wasn’t moved to tears.
Piaf wrote “Hymme à L’Amour” as a tribute to the love of her life, boxer Marcel Cerdan. Dion’s choice to perform this song in memory of the fallen victims of Paris was not only appropriate but acted as a communal expression of our grief for the victims. Watch Dion’s full performance below.