10 Revelations From Elton John’s Autobiography ‘Me’: Drugs, Suicide Attempts, Marriages and Secret Cancer Battle

Credit:

10 Revelations From Elton John’s Autobiography ‘Me’: Drugs, Suicide Attempts, Marriages and Secret Cancer Battle

Elton John is laying it all out on the table. In his new, no-holds-barred, excellently written autobiography, Me (out now), the five-time Grammy winner reflects upon his 72 years on Earth, his five-decade career and everything in-between. Early on, the 350-plus-page book finds John (real name Reginald Dwight) opening up about his strained relationship with his late parents, Stanley and Sheila Dwight, and the humble beginnings of his work in the music industry. He reflects upon meeting his longtime songwriting partner, Bernie Taupin, performing his first concert at West Hollywood’s iconic Troubadour nightclub and embarking on his first tour. As he became a chart-topping superstar, John found himself battling many demons. He was addicted to cocaine, sex and shopping, abused alcohol and developed bulimia. He also struggled with his identity as a gay man. He writes about two suicide attempts — one in 1968 and another in 1975 — and candidly reflects upon his 1990 stint in rehab. In more recent years, the now-sober singer has done a complete 180. He founded the Elton John AIDS Foundation; met and married The One, David Furnish; became a father of two sons, Zachary and Elijah; and continued to find success as a musician. He is currently in the midst of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, which kicked off in September 2018 and is scheduled to run through December 2020. “I have lived an extraordinary life, and I honestly wouldn’t change it, even the parts I regret, because I’m incredibly happy with how it has turned out,” he writes in Me’s epilogue. “It all happened, and here I am. There’s really no point in asking what if? The only question worth asking is: what’s next?” Scroll down to read 10 revelations from Me.

Credit:

10 Revelations From Elton John’s Autobiography ‘Me’: Drugs, Suicide Attempts, Marriages and Secret Cancer Battle

Elton John is laying it all out on the table. In his new, no-holds-barred, excellently written autobiography, Me (out now), the five-time Grammy winner reflects upon his 72 years on Earth, his five-decade career and everything in-between. Early on, the 350-plus-page book finds John (real name Reginald Dwight) opening up about his strained relationship with his late parents, Stanley and Sheila Dwight, and the humble beginnings of his work in the music industry. He reflects upon meeting his longtime songwriting partner, Bernie Taupin, performing his first concert at West Hollywood’s iconic Troubadour nightclub and embarking on his first tour. As he became a chart-topping superstar, John found himself battling many demons. He was addicted to cocaine, sex and shopping, abused alcohol and developed bulimia. He also struggled with his identity as a gay man. He writes about two suicide attempts — one in 1968 and another in 1975 — and candidly reflects upon his 1990 stint in rehab. In more recent years, the now-sober singer has done a complete 180. He founded the Elton John AIDS Foundation; met and married The One, David Furnish; became a father of two sons, Zachary and Elijah; and continued to find success as a musician. He is currently in the midst of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, which kicked off in September 2018 and is scheduled to run through December 2020. “I have lived an extraordinary life, and I honestly wouldn’t change it, even the parts I regret, because I’m incredibly happy with how it has turned out,” he writes in Me’s epilogue. “It all happened, and here I am. There’s really no point in asking what if? The only question worth asking is: what’s next?” Scroll down to read 10 revelations from Me.

Credit: ITV/Shutterstock

He Was Not Close With His Parents

John describes his late mother Sheila’s behavior as “disturbing even by the standards of time.” He claims she once laid him down on a draining board in the kitchen as a child “and stuck carbolic soap up my arse” as a remedy for constipation, noting that he was “f--king terrified of her” for years. Much later in the book, he calls his mom, who died in 2017, a “sociopath.” John also had a tough relationship with his late father, Stanley, who he says “never changed his mind about my career choice.” He admits that “even today,” he finds himself “trying to show my father what I’m made of, and he’s been dead since 1991.”

Credit: Alan Messer/Shutterstock

He Tried to End His Life Twice

John’s 1975 suicide attempt — in which he overdosed on Valium and then threw himself into a swimming pool in front of his family — was widely publicized and even reenacted by Taron Egerton in the 2019 biopic Rocketman. However, it was not his first cry for help. Seven years earlier, he “put a pillow in the bottom of the oven to rest my head on,” turned on the gas and opened the windows of his kitchen. Luckily, Taupin came to the rescue and saved him. The incident, which inspired their 1975 song “Someone Saved My Life Tonight,” had been discussed in unauthorized biographies and various other platfoms through the years, but never by John himself — until now.

Credit: Julian Makey/Shutterstock

He Vomited the First Time He Tried Cocaine

While recording his 1974 album Caribou, John walked in on his boyfriend and manager, John Reid, with a straw and white powder. “I asked what it did and he said, ‘Oh, it just makes you feel good.’ So I asked if I could have some, and he said yes,” the entertainer recalls. After snorting a line, he ran to the bathroom and threw up because of the feeling the drug left in the back of his throat. “And then I immediately went back into the room where John was and asked for another line,” he writes.

Credit: Shutterstock

He Had No Romantic Feelings for His Ex-Wife

After his romance with Reid ended, John grew close with recording engineer Renate Blauel. “On more than one occasion, I found myself idly reflecting that she was everything that I would have wanted a woman to be, if I was straight. Obviously, that was a big if,” he writes. During a night out in 1984, John asked Blauel to marry him — even though “there hadn’t been any hint of actual romance between us, not so much as a kiss.” She said yes, and they wed just two weeks later. But on the night of their wedding, they talked about the prospect of separating and agreed to “never publicly discuss the intimate details of our marriage” when the day came. The couple amicably divorced in 1988.

Credit: Andre Csillag/Shutterstock

He Went on a Two-Week Bender Before Rehab

In 1990, John’s battles with addiction and bulimia had hit an all-time low. Everyone around him noticed that he was self-destructing, including Bob Dylan and The Beatles’ George Harrison, who called him out on it at a house party in Los Angeles. Not long after, John returned to London, where he locked himself in his house for weeks, “snorting cocaine and drinking whisky” while watching porn nonstop. “I didn’t wash, I didn’t get dressed. I sat around, wanking, in a dressing gown covered in my own puke,” he writes. Eventually, John agreed to enter rehab. His book includes a three-page letter he wrote during his recovery about bidding farewell to the “white lady” after 16 years of abuse. He is now 29 years sober.

Credit: Sutton Hibbert/Shutterstock

He Turned Down a Major Disney Offer

After getting his career back on track, John was offered the opportunity to spearhead the soundtrack for the 1994 animated Disney movie The Lion King. “I would be lying if I said I never had doubts about the project or, rather, my place within it,” he writes. Ultimately, he was thrilled with the final product and won an Oscar for “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?” Disney offered John another deal as a result. “It was for a ridiculous amount of money,” he reveals. “They wanted me to develop more films, do TV shows and books; there was even some talk about a theme park.” After some careful consideration, however, he declined.

Credit: Anthony Harvey/Shutterstock

His First Encounter With His Husband Wasn’t Flashy

John did not run in the same circles after finishing his stint in rehab. So, in 1993, one of his friends invited him out to dinner one night so that he could meet other gay men. “The only one who didn’t seem terribly pleased to be there was a Canadian guy in a tartan Armani waistcoat called David,” John recounts of his future husband. “He was clearly shy and didn’t say much, which I thought was a shame: he was very good-looking.” Still, the pair hit it off, exchanged phone numbers and went on a second date. The rest was history.

Credit: Kevork Djansezian/AP/Shutterstock

His Celebrity Friends Have Helped Shape Him

John shares little-known details about his friendships in Me. He notes that he is Eminem’s Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor (“Whenever I ring to check in on him, he always greets me the same way: ‘Hello, you old c--t,’ which I guess is very Eminem”), and expresses worry about the “disturbing” effects prescription drugs had on the late Michael Jackson, who John believes “had totally lost his marbles” in his later years. He also writes about his close relationship with the British royal family, specifically the late Princess Diana, who he says “never mentioned [Prince Charles] by name; it was always ‘my husband’ [but never] an affectionate nickname.” John even breaks down his feud with Tina Turner, alleging that she was “a f--king nightmare” to work with in the ‘90s and admitting he once told her to “stick her f--king song up her arse.”

Credit: Richard Young/Shutterstock

His Mom Disapproved of His Marriage to Furnish

John and Furnish entered into a civil partnership in 2005 on the first day that it became legal in England. The reception was star-studded, to say the least, but John’s mom put a damper on the evening. “My mother had told [Furnish’s parents] they all had to work together to stop the civil partnership going ahead. She didn’t approve of two men ‘getting married,’” John writes, noting that he was confused because Sheila “had never been homophobic” and “was incredibly supportive when I told her I was gay.”

Credit: Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

He Secretly Battled Prostate Cancer

John announces for the first time in Me that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2017 while planning his farewell tour. His doctors detected it early and gave him two options: surgery to remove his prostate or an extended period of radiation and chemotherapy. He opted for the operation, which was successful, and returned on stage in Las Vegas just 10 days after. A bit later, he felt sick during a flight and decided to get checked out. He found out that he had “contracted a major infection in South America,” writing that his medical team “told David I was twenty-four hours away from death.” John left the hospital after 11 days and spent seven weeks recuperating. “I wasn’t ready to die yet,” he writes in the final chapter.