LISTEN: How one of Céline Dion’s biggest and arguably gayest hits almost never happened

On this day 111 years ago — April 14, 1912 — the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean, resulting in more than 1,500 deaths. And on November 24, 1997, an event of even greater cultural magnitude took place: Céline Dion released her career-defining song “My Heart Will Go On.”

The power ballad is synonymous with director James Cameron’s Titanic, having been written for the 1997 movie that told the story of the famous shipwreck. Both the song and the film were massive successes: Titanic became the first movie to earn more than a billion dollars at the box office, and “My Heart Will Go On” was an international hit, topping the charts in more than 25 countries and becoming the world’s best-selling single of 1998.

The song was written by James Horner, who also wrote Titanic’s score, with lyrics by Will Jennings, who helped write hits for gay icons like Whitney Houston (Jennings penned the words for “Didn’t We Almost Have It All”) and Barry Manilow (Jennings wrote the lyrics to “Looks Like We Made It” and “Somewhere in the Night”). All they needed was a vocalist, and Horner, who’d previously worked with Dion on a song for the animated film An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, thought she’d be the perfect fit.

But both Cameron and Dion were resistant to the song existing. Cameron apparently didn’t like the idea of ending his tragic drama with a pop song, and Dion was simply over singing songs for movies. Still, her late husband René Angélil insisted that she record a demo of “My Heart Will Go On.”

“I wanted to choke my husband. Because I didn’t want to do it!” Dion told Billboard in 2017, reflecting on the song’s creation. “I just came out of ‘Because You Loved Me,’ and then ‘Beauty and the Beast’ was, like, huge. Why do we need to break our nose?”

But at her husband’s insistence, she reluctantly recorded a demo. It only took a single take. Dion’s first attempt at the song was the version used in the film, though she recorded the vocals again for the version included on her album Let’s Talk About Love.

It turned out to be the right choice for the French Canadian singer. “My Heart Will Go On” led Dion to two Grammy Awards for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and the coveted Record of the Year. It also earned Horner and Jennings an Academy Award for Best Original Song, infamously presented by Madonna, who quipped, “What a shocker,” before announcing the win.

The song’s massive success was a win not just for Dion, but for the massive legion of queer fans who worship the pop diva. Dion’s been a gay icon since her early days as a French-language artist. Her 1991 song “Ziggy” is from the perspective of a woman in love with a gay man who she knows won’t love her back. The music video is as delightfully campy as you’d expect, featuring Dion pining after a gay athlete who’s more interested in his sports buddies (as demonstrated by some meaningful glances in the locker room showers).

That’s not to mention the three questionable dance remixes of “My Heart Will Go On” released alongside the original track. The tracks sound tailor-made for clubs full of early aughts gays with mesh shirts and frosted tips. What greater service is there to the queer community than letting us dance all night to a song that absolutely shouldn’t work on the dance floor?

Dion remains both a gay icon and a fierce ally to this day. In 2017, she wrote a love letter to the queer community for Pride Month. “I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by so many beautiful people from the LGBTQ community throughout my entire career … from talented performers, musicians, producers and songwriters, to colleagues who have contributed significantly to my success, and last but not least, to so many of my loyal fans who have stood by me, in the name of love,” she wrote in the letter published by Billboard. “All of you have made such a positive impact on my life, and I hope and pray that our world will continue to better understand that acceptance and tolerance are virtues that we can never have enough of.”

Related:

Does the Titanic have a secret gay history? All signs point to yes.

The fascinating story of Archibald Butt and Francis Davis Millet, who were maybe-probably much more than “best friends.”