Elton John reflects on ’emptiness’ of early fame and success at documentary premiere
Gay superstar Elton John has opened up about his initial struggles with success and fame, at the premiere of a new documentary about his life.
Elton John: Never Too Late, co-directed by his husband David Furnish, focuses on the musician’s final tour and return to Dodger Stadium in 2022, almost 50 after he first played at the Los Angeles venue.
The film, which was screened at the BFI London Film Festival on Thursday (10 October), explores Elton’s rise to fame and struggles coping with it, and he is seen talking about his battle with addiction, about his mental health, and the impact homophobia had on his career. He said the comparison between the two shows reflects the difference between the “emptiness” of success when you have no “foundation”, compared with how it feels when you have a more fulfilled home life.
“Music saved me, it also nearly killed me,” he said. “Even when I was at my lowest ebb, I always played music and it moved me, so music’s been my saviour throughout my life.
“I really didn’t have much to do with the film, but I wanted it to show the difference between being successful when you have no foundation and you’re just hurtled into five years of non-stop work, and success and finding out that you’re very empty inside.
“Then 47 years later I come off stage for the last time in America at Dodger Stadium again, [and now] I have the most wonderful life: no sadness, just happiness, family, children, husband, friends, sobriety. It was a hell of a difference.”
Furnish revealed that now his husband has officially retired from performing live, focusing on being together and spending time with their two sons, 13-year-old Zachary and Elijah, 11, was “the most important thing” in his life.
Speaking to PinkNews on the red carpet a the film festival, Furnish said that time at home with his family has “satisfied [his husband’s] soul.”
He continued: “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.”
Part of creating the film had been looking at the singer’s “beautiful”, but almost-forgotten, handwritten diaries.
“The amount of work he crammed in, and the passion 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 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.”
Elton John: Never Too Late is available to stream on Disney+ from 13 December.
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