Celine Dion Calls Out Trump Campaign’s Titanic Misstep

It seems premature to characterize Donald Trump’s presidential campaign as a “sinking ship.” But as singer Céline Dion alluded Saturday, that’s exactly what organizers of a rally for the former president just did, using a song that evoked comparisons to one of the most notable disasters of the modern era. Was it a misstep, a Freudian slip, or an admission that things haven’t been going so great? That’s unclear, but what’s crystal is that Dion doesn’t want any part of it.

It all went down at Trump’s Bozeman, Montana rally on Friday—yes, the same rally that was directly preceded by the GOP frontrunner’s threats to sue the New York Times for their reporting that a near-death helicopter ride Trump claimed he took with former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown never happened. After Trump made the reportedly shout-filled threat, he headed to a rally at Montana State University’s 8,455-seat Brick Breeden Field House.

According to the Daily Montanan, Trump subjected those assembled at his first rally since Democratic nominee for president Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate to “a meandering speech that lasted more than an hour and a half.” During that speech, per PolitiFact, he presented his usual slate of misinformation and falsehoods, including incorrect claims about the inflation rate during his presidency and lies about Harris’s stated positions on immigration and border control.

Racism and xenophobia were also in ample supply, with the former president proclaiming that after he is elected, expect “a Trump mass deportation, because we have no choice. We have no choice. If Harris wins, a never-ending stream of illegal alien rapists.”

But before Trump took the stage, the campaign took a less confident note. As widely shared on social media, the gigantic video monitors at the event played Céline Dion performing her iconic 1997 song, “My Heart Will Go On,” which is internationally known as the theme song to James Cameron’s epic disaster movie, Titanic. That’s right, they used the theme song from a movie about hubris, denial, and a high-profile catastrophe to entertain the rally crowd. You can’t make this stuff up.

When Dion caught wind of the use of her song and image Saturday, she issued a swift rebuke.

“Today, Celine Dion’s management team and her record label, Sony Music Entertainment Canada Inc., became aware of the unauthorized usage of the video, recording, musical performance, and likeness of Celine Dion singing “My Heart Will Go On” at a Donald Trump / JD Vance campaign rally in Montana,” the artist wrote in a statement posted to X (formerly Twitter) and elsewhere. (We should note here that Vance was not in attendance at the Bozeman rally, nor did a discussion of his qualities appear prominently in the remarks made on stage.)

“In no way is this use authorized, and Celine Dion does not endorse this or any similar use,” Dion continued, before ending with the question that we’re all sort of asking. “…And really, THAT song?”

As of publication time, neither Trump nor his campaign have publicly responded to Dion and her diss heard ’round the world, nor have they explained why a song so closely linked to a movie about how callow rich people saved themselves while allowing the so-called common folks to die made sense for a political rally at which a self-described rich person dominated the spotlight. One can certainly guess how Trump is responding to this in private, though.

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