Celine Dion found school ''hard'' because she wasn't ''the cool dude''.

The 'My Heart Will Go On' hitmaker suggested she was mocked by her classmates because of her appearance and old clothes, which affected her confidence and led to her refusing to sing in public.

She admitted: ''I was definitely not very good at school. I was not the cool dude, I was not good looking, I was feeling awkward. I couldn't perform at school - I couldn't just stand up on my desk and start singing.

''It was hard, my teeth were all crooked and we were poor a little bit so the clothes were passed on from my brothers to my sisters, to me.''

These days, the 45-year-old singer - who has sons Rene-Charles, 13, and three-year-old twins Nelson and Eddy, with husband Rene Angelil - feels ''amazing'' but can understand her teenage insecurities as she didn't have the ''maturity'' to know what was important.

She said: ''Now, you know what, I feel amazing. When you're 17 and 15 and 14, it's not about how you feel, it's how you look, and when you grow and you mature, which is great about maturity and growing older, you understand the values of life and how it's important to feel emotionally balanced - but it's not necessarily given to you when you're 15 and 17 years old, and now, we understand.''