David Furnish reveals ‘most important thing’ for husband Elton John in retirement
David Furnish and Elton John at the London Film Festival premiere of Elton John Never: Too Late. (Getty)
Elton John’s husband David Furnish has spoken about what “the most important thing” is for the pop superstar as he officially retires from performing live.
Speaking exclusively to PinkNews on the red carpet of the BFI London Film Festival premiere of new documentary Elton John: Never Too Late on Thursday (10 October), Furnish said that time at home with his family has “satisfied [his husband’s] soul”.
He went on to say: “Elton has said, ‘I don’t want my tombstone to say I sold millions of records. I’d like it to say I was a great dad and a loving husband’. So, I think the most important thing for Elton is family at this stage in his life.
“Not that he doesn’t care about the music, he cares about it passionately. But what [has] satisfied his soul, I think, and brought him real comfort at this stage in his life, is what we have at home.”
Elton has previously revealed that he has permanently retired from touring because he wants to spend more time with David, whom he married in 2014, and their two sons: Zachary, who will be 14 on Christmas Day, and Elijah, who turns 12 in January.
Furnish directed the new documentary, alongside R J Cutler, who won an Emmy for Elton John Live: Farewell from Dodger Stadium.
The film explores Elton’s rise to fame and struggles coping with it, and he is seen talking about his battle with with addiction, and about his mental health, as well as how homophobia when he came out as bisexual in 1976, then gay in 1992, affected his career.
It uses archival footage, including extracts from the star’s diaries.
Furnish said: “For me, when we got Elton’s handwritten diaries that he’d completely forgotten [about], the amount of work he crammed in, and the passion that he did it [with]… when you read something like, ‘Woke up in the morning, had breakfast, wrote ‘Rocket Man’, wrote two other songs, recorded vocals’, all things in like a day – the insane passion and creativity that was coming out of him at that time… to see it in his own handwriting and written down so kind of naively, he’s just really on this big, extraordinary ride, and he hasn’t lost himself.
“He’s writing his insights down in a way that is just so every day. It’s really beautiful.”
Furnish’s documentary ends in 2022, when Elton played his final North American tour date at Dodger Stadium, in Los Angeles.
Elton John: Never Too Late premieres on Disney+ on 13 December.
The BFI London Film Festival is happening across London until 20 October.
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