Rugby star Ben Cohen: Elton John made me get a hearing aid and ‘changed my life’
Former England rugby player Ben Cohen has said that Elton John “changed his life” by convincing him to get a hearing aid, and said that Sir Elton does more charity work than people realise.
The 34-year-old human rights campaigner, said he had been told by doctors that he had lost a third of his hearing, and had tinnitus in his mid 20s, but he refused to wear a hearing aid because he thought they were “cumbersome and ineffective”.
Cohen said that, after he set up the Stand Up Foundation, which seeks to eliminate homophobia and transphobia from professional sport, Elton John showed an interest.
“He called me, out of the blue, and introduced himself,” Cohen told theĀ Daily Mail.
“He said, ‘I hear you’re deaf. I love the work you’re doing and I’d love to help you. When you’re next in America, I’m going to send you over to [hearing aid manufacturer] Starkey and fit you out with new state-of-the-art hearing aids. While you’re there you might as well see the head guy, the owner.’ It was an amazing day.”
After he attended Starkey, Cohen found that he had lost 50% of his hearing, and that his ability to hear was deteriorating over time.
“Iām into the profound hearing loss category. Iām going deaf,” says Ben. “Certain sounds ā such as the letters T and K ā I canāt really hear at all. But my new hearing aids are directional, so they pick up the sound in front of me, like the personĀ Iām talking to, more than background noise.
Elton John is an ambassador for the Starkey Hearing Foundation, a charity which helps children in Third World countries suffering from hearing loss.
The rugby star now says he uses the hearing aids often, and that they have helped with his professional, social and home life.
On Elton John, and whether he still sees him now, Cohen said: “Yeah, I do, and heās a big supporter of my foundation. My wife and I went round there for dinner. He helps whenever he can.
“Heās a very kind man and he does a lot of stuff that people donāt realise he does and will never know because he doesnāt want people to know.”
He said doctors didn’t know how much worse his hearing might get, saying: “At the moment the hearing seems to have reached a plateau but weāll have to wait and see. Thereās no point worrying about it because itās out of my control.”
Cohen recentlyĀ gave a speech at ParliOut, the Houses of Parliamentās gay staff network,Ā where he said more needed to be done to combat homophobia in sport.
