Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Angelil: Stress led to $2 million payment

Rene Angelil, Celine Dion's husband, in an exclusive interview with the Las Vegas Sun, has ended his silence regarding allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman at the Imperial Palace March 18, 2000.

Angelil, 61, for the first time described the situation in his own words, including why he paid $2 million to keep the woman, who has been charged with extortion, from making her allegation public.

Appearing relieved to be telling his story, Angelil recently described what happened that night and the events that unfolded in the following months. He spoke from the 2,400-square-foot apartment built for Dion below the Caesars Palace Colosseum showroom, where she performs in "A New Day ..." five nights a week.

As Angelil spoke, Dion was in another area of the apartment preparing for her next performance.

"It's the first time that I tell the story," Angelil said. He said he felt compelled to address the issue after months of remaining silent.

Angelil described the events that took place in March 2000 that resulted in his paying $2 million to Yun Kyeong Sung, 47, and Ae Hoe Kwon, 50, a Pasadena, Calif., couple.

"She (Sung) said all sorts of lies on paper that were picked up by every newspaper in the world," said Angelil, a French Canadian from Montreal whose English is slightly broken, tinged with an accent.

The allegations against Angelil created an international sensation when they first came to light in March 2002, after Sung filed a civil suit and a criminal complaint.

He noted that he was never charged with a crime. Metro Police announced in January it was ending an investigation of the allegations made by Sung.

Sung's attorney, Robert Langford, declined to comment for this story.

"This whole thing is so incredible," said the soft-spoken Angelil, described by his associates as a deeply sensitive man who often weeps at his wife's concerts. "It all got out of proportion. The real story is, this was a fan that I met at Caesars that told me a story about a friend of hers that was handicapped."

Angelil said Sung preyed on his kindness.

"She took advantage of the fact that I was Celine Dion's husband and that I was a nice person who wanted to help her friend," said Angelil, dressed formally in a gray pinstripe suit, his white beard cut short, the halo of white hair below the crown of his head neatly trimmed.

He reflected on the night in March 2000, when he was gambling at the casino that recently built his wife a $95-million showroom.

"I was with a friend at Caesars, by the way, who was with me almost all the time," he said. "Through the night (Sung) said she was a big fan of mine, that she was happy that I was OK and how much she liked Celine."

The year before, in 1999, Angelil had been diagnosed with throat cancer. Dion took a hiatus from her career at the end of that year to concentrate on beginning a family and to spend more time with her husband.

"At one point (Sung) asked if I could say hello to a friend of hers who was an even bigger Celine fan," Angelil said. "I said, 'Sure, bring her in.' But she said, well, her friend is handicapped and she's in the hotel room and would I mind coming to the room to speak to her."

He says he saw nothing unusual about the request.

"I asked my friend if he wanted to come, but he was tired," Angelil said. "I felt like there was nothing wrong going to the room to meet a fan who was handicapped."

And so, Angelil accompanied Sung.

"I went with her thinking I was going to a room at Caesars Palace," he said. "I asked her, and she said no, it's in the Imperial Palace across the street. I felt awkward, leaving the (Caesars) property -- I never do that. But I still went."

When they arrived at the room, Angelil said Sung quickly went into the bathroom and closed the door.

Sung alleged in her civil suit that after she met Angelil at Caesars he followed her to the Imperial Palace, fondled her in an elevator, followed her into her room, locked the door and sexually assaulted her.

"When she went into the bathroom I saw there was nobody in the room so I left immediately," he said. "That's the story."

Angelil says he returned to Caesars and found his friend.

"I told him a weird thing had just happened," he said.

Angelil put the incident out of his mind until almost two months later, when he and Dion were in New York, where she was undergoing medical treatments in an attempt to get pregnant through in vitro fertilization.

"Every day she would have two different shots," he recalled. "In the morning and afternoon. She had ultrasound in the afternoons for a whole month."

Angelil said it was a difficult time. He was under stress from cancer treatments and she from the in vitro procedure.

"One day I got a call from our lawyer in Los Angeles asking me if I was at the Imperial Palace two months ago," Angelil said. "So now I remembered that thing that happened. So I said, 'Yeah,' and he said a lawyer from Los Angeles called him to tell him there was a woman who accused me of fondling her.

"It was an incredible story."

The rape accusation did not surface until almost two years later, when Sung filed a civil claim.

Angelil said Sung never filed a police report after the alleged incident in 2000, just contacted his lawyer, Singer, and told him she was going to sue if she didn't get paid.

"My attorney said, 'This will go away in a week. It's stupid. I know these kinds of people. They're trying to get money. There's a lot of people like that,' " Angelil said. "I said, 'What's going to happen?' He said, 'She will file her complaint in court and then try to negotiate to get money to get you not to go to court.' And I said, 'What if she files in court?' And he said, 'Newspapers will pick it up.' "

Angelil envisioned the impending chaos.

"I told him, 'I am Celine's husband,' " Angelil said. " 'This story is going to go all over the world. Now is not the right time. We don't need the stress.' "

He was about to leave New York for Florida, where he was to have some tests to determine the status of his cancer.

"That was a time where I would know whether I was OK or not," Angelil said. "I said we don't need the stress. Give her some money. She wants money, give her some money."

But $2 million?

"She is lucky," Angelil said. "She does that at the right time. I don't care. Right then I am on the stock market. Every day I'm down a million, then I'm up two million. At that time I had stock in AOL and it was moving like crazy.

"So I said to my attorney, 'I don't care right now. It's important that we don't have that stress.' So, he said 'OK.' "

Singer, whose clients are typically celebrities, sports figures and politicians, says the situation Angelil found himself in was not particularly unusual.

"In terms of these claims made against people in the public eye, it's not uncommon that many times people pay lots of money to keep things quiet," Singer said in a phone interview. "You pay the money to keep things confidential, whether they are true or false."

He said quite often the money is paid to protect a career. But in this case, he said, it was primarily because of the medical issues both Angelil and Dion were experiencing.

Angelil said the request for the hush money came at the end of May, just prior to his and Dion's leaving for their Florida residence, which they have since sold in favor of a home in the exclusive Lake Las Vegas Resort.

Angelil says he kept the extortion secret from his wife for several months.

"When we got to Florida we were waiting for the results to hear whether she was pregnant or not," he said. "On June 8 we found out that she was indeed pregnant. Coincidentally, on the same day my attorney calls me and tells me he had made a settlement with (Sung). He didn't like the idea of settling, but he understood that I didn't want to have any stress."

Angelil thought the payoff would put an end to the issue. Under the agreement the settlement would be kept confidential and if the confidentiality were broken then the $2 million would have to be returned.

On Jan. 25, 2001, Rene-Charles Angelil was born in Florida, and soon after Angelil told his wife about the threatened lawsuit and the $2 million.

"Celine thought I did the right thing," Angelil said.

He said some people could not understand why he met the demands for money.

"They think if I give the money, then it's true," Angelil said. "But if they were in my position at that particular time, what would they do? I don't regret giving her money at that time.

"To go through the pregnancy was very hard. You need to sacrifice for like nine months. We went through that and we have an incredible baby. To me, there was no amount of money that would have prevented me from not having that stress at that time."

For almost two years Angelil and Dion went on with their lives, nurturing their son and developing the production now in full swing at Caesars.

Then, in March 2002, Sung's former attorney, Joseph Hong of Las Vegas, sent Singer a notice that if another settlement were not made, then a lawsuit would be filed. Initially, Sung wanted $20 million, but subsequently lowered the demand to $13.5 million.

No new agreement was reached and Sung filed suit, alleging for the first time publicly that Angelil beat and raped her.

"She filed a case thinking I'm going to settle again," Angelil said. "How stupid can she get? ... Settle what?

"Now I found out the whole story. That she was a gambler and that she had some debts."

Sung and Kwon were first arrested in January following what Angelil described as a "sting" operation, in which Metro Police listened to negotiations between the couple and Angelil's attorneys. The meeting was supposedly an attempt to resolve Sung's demands for Angelil to pay another $13.5 million, in addition to the $2 million settlement in 2000.

"She tried to extort money again by saying that she would say that she has a dress (with DNA evidence), which is completely incredible," said Angelil, "It was so stupid. When I met her she was wearing black pants and a black jacket.

"So our lawyer set up a meeting with her, where there were cameras and microphones."

At the meeting were Angelil's attorney, Singer, Sung, Kwon, their attorneys and a Metro officer posing as an agent for Angelil.

"In the meeting her and her husband said they don't care if it's true or not -- if they say it (publicly), it's going to ruin my reputation," Angelil recounted. "As soon as police heard that, they came into the room and arrested them for extortion."

After the arrest they were released, only to be re-arrested in March when a Clark County grand jury indicted the couple on extortion charges stemming from the demand for more money. The grand jury's charges replaced the earlier ones.

In an unrelated case, Sung faces felony fraud charges for failing to repay almost $1 million in Las Vegas casino loans, including a $400,000 debt to Mandalay Bay and four separate loans at Harrah's. The markers were issued in 2001.

Kwon is free on $10,000 bond. Sung, a native of South Korea, is still incarcerated in the Clark County Detention Center, pending the resolution of immigration issues.

Angelil, who has been cancer-free for four years, said Sung and her husband are "trying to do all sorts of crazy things."

"It's so stupid, so crazy," he said. "Now I don't care anymore that much. But it did affect me last year, when she came out with that (allegation) and all the papers came out with the story.

"I made a mistake. I should not have gone out of Caesars Palace."

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