Celine Dion and René Angélil's Beautiful 30-Year Love Story

After one of Dion's 13 siblings sent a tape of a then 12-year-old Celine singing to Angélil, the well-known music manager invited her to audition in Quebec. "While I was singing, he started to cry," Celine has said. "I knew then I had done a good job." In 1981, Angélil even mortgaged his house to finance her album and took the teen and her mother on tour in Canada, Japan, and Europe.

Dion's star kept rising, which was great news for the newly married couple and professional partners. (She received a World Music Award in Monte Carlo, Monaco, in May 1995.)

Dion's version of "Beauty and the Beast" won an Oscar and Grammy in 1991, but in 1997, one of her biggest hits — "My Heart Will Go On" from Titanic — won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

In 1998, the couple's world was shaken when Angélil was diagnosed with throat cancer. Despite her demanding career, Dion chose to step back and take a hiatus to focus on her personal life and care for her husband. Looking back on their years of marriage, the star has said they've certainly had tough times: "We had tension between us. It's never easy being husband and wife, but add to that we are in business together, dealing with all the added pressures of shows, concerts, tours, traveling. It was hard – a lot of hard work."

Angelil was declared cancer-free in 2000. The couple celebrated by renewing their wedding vows in a traditional Melkite Byzantine ceremony in Las Vegas. Of the elaborate event, Dion said: "It's almost like a show, and we're show business people."

Years of difficult fertility treatments finally paid off, and Dion gave birth to son René Charles, the couple's first child, on January 25. The couple baptized the baby that July at Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal — the same place where they married years earlier!

Finally, Dion was ready to resume performing, with a healthy Angélil by her side. In 2002, she released album A New Day Has Come and announced her residency at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. In January 2003, she kicked off the Super Bowl (pictured here) with "God Bless America."

The couple were devastated yet again when Angélil's cancer returned in 2013. (They gave an interview about the diagnosis to Katie Couric in April, 2013, pictured.) That December, he underwent surgery to remove a tumor. The next year, the singer put her career on hold again to care for her longtime love.

In August, Dion returned to performing in Las Vegas, while Angelil battles cancer at their nearby home. "I didn't want to be here at first," Dion, 47, told USA Today of how her husband of 21 years pushed her to go. "But René really gave me a gift. All my grieving, it was during this last year. I think I've got this. For now. When it hits me, it's going to hit me. But my biggest job is to tell my husband, we're fine. I'll take care of our kids. You'll watch us from another spot." Angélil, 73, has been on a feeding tube for two years, and Dion tries to be strong during his lengthy illness. "I'll say, 'You're scared? I understand. Talk to me about it,'" she said. "And René says to me, 'I want to die in your arms.' OK, fine, I'll be there, you'll die in my arms."