ALISON BOSHOFF: The overwhelming love that's helped Elton John fight a decade of health battles - and why he'll never lose hope even though his sight is failing
There was a little tearful break of emotion in Elton John's voice on Sunday night when he announced to an audience of family and friends at the Dominion Theatre in London's West End: 'As you know, I have lost my eyesight.'
The singer, 77, has been left with what is clinically known as 'low vision' after picking up a bacterial infection in France in his right eye more than four months ago.
Having retired from touring last year, Elton has now paused work on his planned 37th studio album – which he had hoped to release before Christmas – because he 'cannot read a lyric'.
Neither can he see his exceptional and valuable collection of photography, which is one of the greatest private collections in the world.
It has been his passion since he gave up alcohol and drugs in 1990 and some of it is currently on display in an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Most heartbreakingly, he can only see his sons Zachary, who is 14 on Christmas Day, and Elijah, who turns 12 when they are close to him.
Elton John poses with Liz and Damian Hurley and husband David at Sunday's The Devil Wears Prada party
An airport worker pushes a masked Elton in a wheelchair after a concert in Germany in 2022
The desire to spend time with his family was what drove him to give up touring after one final mega-show, the 330-date Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour (which his once-friend Rod Stewart uncharitably said stunk of 'grabbing money'). Finishing in Stockholm, Sweden, in July last year, the tour took Elton to four continents and 6.25 million fans.
What a devastating irony, then, that Elton's health is so poor just as he's ready to spend more time with his family at their 27-acre country manor in Windsor, Berks.
As he said last month: 'I want to make the best of my time while I am around. Our time together is so wonderful and so precious.'
An associate of the star tells me: 'Elton is stoic. He doesn't like to talk about his health so it was a surprise when he came out with this yesterday.' The source adds that Elton's mood was 'upbeat and excited' at the launch of his new musical, The Devil Wears Prada.
It's not clear whether, with further treatment, his vision might improve or if his condition is permanent. His representatives declined to comment.
However, sources say that despite this latest blow, Elton is in fine spirits and is continuing to work with doctors, who are pleased with his progress.
I was in the audience at the glittering gala performance of The Devil Wears Prada on Sunday night, and there was no disguising his ill-health.
There were plans for Elton to arrive at the show, for which he wrote the music, riding on a giant high-heeled shoe, like a sleigh. In the event, apparently out of consideration for the star's physical impairment, everything was more low-key, and he arrived by car.
He was guided by his husband of ten years Furnish, who stuck to him with a hand on his shoulder or in the small of his back as he made his way through the theatre. The couple sat in the Royal Box with friend Donatella Versace and Vogue supremo Anna Wintour, who was the inspiration for the original Devil Wears Prada book, which became a hit film in 2006 starring Meryl Streep.
Elton uses a walking stick earlier this year. He retired from touring in 2023 and has now paused work on his planned 37th studio album - which he had hoped to release before Christmas - because he 'cannot read a lyric'
At the after-party at the British Museum, Elton wasn't to be found in the noisy throng in the Great Hall, where Beverley Knight performed and guests sipped cocktails.
Friends such as The Who's Pete Townshend, 79, and fashion designer Zandra Rhodes, 84, were there in the crush – but Elton was in a side room where he greeted and posed, seated, for photographs with guests including Liz Hurley and her son – Elton's godchild – Damian.
Guests had been taken by surprise by his candour on the stage earlier that night. Elton said: 'I would like to thank… my husband, he has been my rock because I haven't been able to come to many of the previews because I, you know I have lost my eyesight and it's hard for me to see it [the show]. But I love to hear it, and boy, it sounded good tonight.'
At an event in September Elton admitted that his current health troubles have made the whole family think about his mortality.
He said: 'The boys think about my mortality. They worry about my mortality. They love their daddy, so they want me to be around forever. I would love to be around forever.
'I want to see them have children and get married. I don't think I'm going to be around for that. Who knows? You never know.'
Husband David Furnish, 62, responded: 'That really upset me. Because in my mind I sort of think Elton is going to live for ever – we all think that – and Elton is so vibrant that it's an easy thing to believe, but it forces you to confront that reality.'
The fact is that Elton was 63 when Zachary was born and has long struggled with serious health issues. His prayer – as it was when in 2017 he was admitted to intensive care with an infection which nearly killed him – is to have 'a little longer' with them.
At that point, he was 24 hours from death, having contracted the bacterial infection after treatment for prostate cancer. 'In the hospital, alone at the dead of night, I'd prayed: 'Please don't let me die, please let me see my kids again, please give me a little longer,' he said.
He has had more than his fair share of serious health crises, including pneumonia in 2020; the fitting of a stent to widen the arteries to his heart in 1999; one hip and two knee replacements; and undiagnosed appendicitis which also nearly killed him in 2013.
The singer, 77, has been left with what is clinically known as 'low vision' after picking up a bacterial infection in France in his right eye more than four months ago
Elton alongside his husband David Furnish, 62. David says that in his mind he thinks 'Elton will live forever'
'I don't have tonsils, adenoids or an appendix,' he said earlier this year. 'I don't have a prostate. I don't have a right hip or a left knee or a right knee. In fact, the only thing left of me is my left hip. But I'm still here.'
However, as Elton wrote in his rollicking 2019 memoir, Me, those health troubles all came after his life as an addict – which had involved drug and booze binges and horrifying bulimic purging – which could easily have killed him, too.
When he was at the height of his fame in the 1970s and 1980s, the Rocketman's pursuit of narcotic oblivion while onstage in his sequinned suit in stadiums across the world was so headlong, it seemed he didn't care if he lived or died.
'There was an emptiness within me. I didn't have anything other than my success and my drugs,' he said. 'I would have an epileptic seizure and turn blue, and people would find me on the floor and put me to bed, and then 40 minutes later I'd be snorting another line [of cocaine]. This is how bleak it was: I'd stay up, I'd smoke joints, I'd drink a bottle of Johnnie Walker and then I'd stay up for three days and then I'd go to sleep for a day and half, get up.
'And because I was so hungry, because I hadn't eaten anything, I'd binge and have like three bacon sandwiches, a pot of ice cream and then I'd throw it up, because I became bulimic and then go and do the whole thing all over again.'
He added: 'I still dream, twice a week at least, that I've taken cocaine and I have it up my nose. And it's very vivid and it's very upsetting, but at least it's a wake-up call.'
Despite it all, Elton is still restlessly seeking new challenges and new ventures. His team believe that a new studio album – his 37th – will be ready for release at some point next year.
The musical is meanwhile a passion project – The Devil Wears Prada is one of his favourite films – which he's been working on since 2017.
A bumpy run in Chicago in 2022 meant a complete re-working for the West End, where – starring Vanessa Williams as fashion editor Miranda Priestly – it was received with rapturous applause by his invited guests on Sunday evening.
Two weeks ago, after a much less enthusiastic reception in the US, a second Elton musical, Tammy Faye, announced it is to close barely a month after it opened on Broadway. That $25 million venture was a misfire.
A couple of weeks ago he performed with friend, Dua Lipa, for her forthcoming ITV special, and in September a new documentary about his life was launched. Made by Furnish with help from American filmmaker RJ Cutler, it is titled Elton John: Never Too Late and acts as a retrospective for his whole career, ending with his final Farewell Yellow Brick Road concert.
The documentary, which will be streaming on Disney + from December 13, covers his struggle to come to terms with his sexuality, including his romance with manager John Reid, his battles with cocaine, and the crippling sense of emptiness he later confessed to suffering at the height of his success. It also draws on previously unheard tapes of Elton's interview with Alexis Petridis, the ghostwriter of his 2019 autobiography.
He talks about his childhood that was 'full of fear' and describes how his mother Sheila would beat him until he bled with a wire brush until he was potty trained. His father, disapproving and distant, never came to see him play music.
He remembers being hit, too, by Reid, his first lover: 'A few drinks too many, if you crossed him, he'd punch you or he'd break a glass and put it in your face.'
He said in his memoir: 'The self-loathing, not having any self-esteem, that all comes from when I was a kid. All my life, until I became sober, I was afraid of talking to anybody. They asked me when I went to treatment how I felt and I said: 'I don't know, I don't feel anything.'
'I came to defrost, as it were, and discovered I did have feelings, and they went back a long time. And I think it stays with you for the whole of your life – I just have terrible feelings about myself; I feel bad about myself sometimes.'
The end of the film shows his swansong Farewell Yellow Brick Road show at the Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. He tells the crowd that he is retiring to spend more time with Furnish and their sons.
The icon, who was without a loving family in his childhood, has now achieved the domestic life which he always dreamed of and it has finally brought him peace.
'I thought I was too late to have children, but actually they came at the right time in my life, and it's taught me so much,' he said. 'God, I love my children so much. I have a purpose in life.'
As he said on stage when finishing his tour in Sweden: 'I've had the most wonderful career.
'Fifty-odd years of pure joy playing music. I want to appreciate my family, my sons, my husband, everything – I've earned it.'
