A picture of international singer Celine Dion on a hospital bed. Here’s the truth #FactCheck

rolling: Singer Celine Dion pictured “on a hospital bed”, according to allegations.

But this claim is incorrect.

the truth: The moving image is composite. The original photo, published in 2014, shows Viola Symonds on a hospital bed after paramedics found her in a dark, dingy room at her daughter’s home in Orillia, Ontario, Canada. FactCheck#

An-Nahar checked for you

what’s the story

The picture shows the international singer Celine Dion with a tired face, while lying on a hospital bed. And it is transmitted on social media with an invitation to “pray for Celine Dion to get better after she succumbed to the death of her husband,” and “we wish her a speedy recovery.”

– The truth of the picture –

The circulation of the image came after the international singer, Celine Dion, announced, in December 2022, that she had stiff person syndrome, which is a rare neurological disorder that has the features of an autoimmune disease.

The Canadian singer told her followers on Instagram that the disease makes her muscles uncomfortably spasm (here، here، here…). She addressed her fans, saying, “I’m sorry it took me so long to get to you. I miss you all so much and can’t wait to be on stage and talk to you in person.”

The singer has become unable to walk easily as a result of the disease and has difficulty singing, she said, and this means that she will not be able to participate in concerts that were planned for next year in the United Kingdom and Europe.

– The truth of the picture –

However, the transmitted image has nothing to do with Celine Dion, according to the findings of the investigation of its truth.

The reverse search for her puts us in front of the original image published in news sites, especially Canadian, in 2014 as part of reports on Viola Simonds, the elderly woman who was found by paramedics in a deplorable condition in a dark and dirty room in her daughter’s home in Orillia, Ontario, Canada (here، here…).

And the appearance of the original image means that the transferred image is a composite, digitally modified, by replacing Simmonds’ face with Dion’s. Here is a comparison between the original image (below to the right) and the composite image (to the left).

The case of Simmonds, 76, caused a stir in Canada at the time. In 2015, a judge sentenced her daughter, Diana Davey, to one year in prison and two years’ probation, for long-term abuse of her mother, Simone. Also, her husband, James Davy (here، here، here…).

In the details, Symonds was found covered in dirt, blood, feces and vomit naked in a filthy room whose window was sprayed black at her home in Orillia on May 26, 2011.

Symonds, who was a nurse in her younger days, was taken to hospital. But she was suffering from severe damage to the brain and organs due to dehydration and starvation, which prevented her from undergoing an operation to repair the hip joint. She died months later in a nursing home.

The judge criticized Symonds’ daughter and her husband for refusing to accept help from healthcare workers, and for moving from place to place to evade social workers and family. “You have cut her off from her family and robbed her of the precious few remaining years she could have enjoyed with her,” he told them.

The judge indicated that the daughter, Diana, did not show any remorse, and that her words were to blame her family for a series of accusations against her.

The result: So, the allegations that the circulating image shows international singer Celine Dion “on a hospital bed” are not true. In fact, the image is a composite. The original photo, published in 2014, shows Viola Symonds on a hospital bed after paramedics found her in a dark, dingy room at her daughter’s home in Orillia, Ontario, Canada.

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