Visitors to Las Vegas may have been wondering what could have happened to Celine Dion that would require her to cancel five weeks of shows. Here's the answer, as the Grammy-winning songstress told TODAY's Savannah Guthrie on Monday: She had a virus that affected her vocal cords.  

"It was just choppy a little bit," said Dion. And while her heart may go on, her voice wouldn't let her go on -- so she had to make that difficult decision to stay off stage for a bit. "It's hard to do a show, but it's much harder to cancel the show. We disappointed a lot of people. It was hard."

There's one person out there, however, who was probably happy with a little less of Dion's "My Heart Will Go On," a song that won an Oscar after being featured in "Titanic" -- Kate Winslet. In March, the actress said the tune made her feel like "throwing up." But Dion took the criticism in stride -- and even admitted to some empathy with Winslet's statement.

"'My Heart Will Go On' gave me the opportunity to be associated with a classic that will live forever," she said. "If I just count how many times I've sung it, maybe it'll get me sick. If she feels tired just hearing it, and, like, throwing up, I'm glad she was not the one singing it."

For now, Dion is back from her break, and even has a new song, "Didn't Know Love." She said that no matter what happens to her voice, though, that is not what defines her. "I don't depend on my vocal cords," she said. "I don't depend on my success and my singing. Don't get me wrong. I love what I do. But I don't hold on to that. When you have children (Dion has three with husband Rene Angelil -- and notes that her 11-year-old son is more of a fan of Eminem than his mother's music), you have accomplished a lot."

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Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet have gone on and on in "Titanic."

Don't tell Celine Dion, but Kate Winslet doesn't exactly get verklempt over "My Heart Will Go On."

The Oscar-winning actress, 36, says the classic "Titanic" theme song beloved by some and loathed by others seems to follow and "haunt" her wherever she goes, nearly 15 years after the blockbuster film and soundtrack were released.

"I wish I could say, 'Oh listen, everybody! It's the Celine Dion song!' But I don't," Winslet, now promoting the new 3-D version of Titanic, confessed to MTV News. "I just have to sit there, you know, kind of straight-faced with a massive internal eye roll."

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The emotional, chart-topping ballad makes her "feel like throwing up," the "Mildred Pierce" star said. "It's thrilling for people to surprise me with the Celine Dion song."

The torture got even worse recently when she did an Italian TV talk show, and "they actually had a live pianist who started gently playing the theme song."

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Winslet was "rather severely urged to go and sing it as though I had in fact sung it myself in the first place," she explained.

(French-Canadian sing Dion, 44, of course, did the honors on the Oscar-winning hit.)

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"It was like, 'No! I'm not going to do that.' They're like, 'Oh no, come on it will be funny.'" she said of the awkward song request. "No, it won't be funny. At all. And I'm not going to."

Do you think "My Heart Will Go On" is a great song?

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Frazer Harrison / Getty Images file

Celine Dion is having to take a break from her Vegas shows due to inflamed vocal cords.

Her heart may go on, but her Las Vegas show won't -- at least not for now.

Celine Dion has canceled a slew of Sin City performances after contracting a virus that inflamed her vocal cords, according to reports.

The singer decided to pull the plug on her shows at Caesars Palace following doctors' orders.

Such a good patient, that Celine! But how long is she down for the count?

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Doctors are asking the chanteuse to rest up for two months. Barring any snags, she's expected to hit the stage again in early June.

In a statement, the singer said, "I tried to sing at my sound check last week, and I had no control of my voice whatsoever. We thought that after a few days' rest I would improve, but it wasn't getting any better."

Vegas can't get enough of the "My Heart Will Go On" balladeer's thundering voice. For five years, up until 2007, the singer mounted a massively successful run of shows at Caesars Palace, which reportedly grossed over $400 million. Last year, she announced a return engagement that would stretch another three years.

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Now that she's got some downtime, Dion might want to double-check her outfits for the show: We wouldn't want her flashing any more concertgoers like she did in Jamaica last month, would we?

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