Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, is an English pianist, singer-songwriter and composer. He has worked with lyricist Bernie Taupin as his songwriting partner since 1967; they have collaborated on more than 30 albums to date. In his five-decade career Elton John has sold more than 300 million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world. He has more than fifty Top 40 hits, including seven consecutive No. 1 US albums, 58 Billboard Top 40 singles, 27 Top...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth25 March 1947
CityLondon, England
My mother encouraged me and was very great about me being gay, but she always encouraged me to follow my musical dreams, which I'm very grateful for.
Top dog, top hat, move that muscle, move that fat.
Some men kneel and pray, I like women and I like wine.
Getting paid for being laid, guess that's the name of the game.
I was ready to approach her with my English charm, when her brass knuckled boyfriend grabbed me by the arm.
When President Mbeki said, if you get AIDS, you can have a shower and it goes away. It's like, oh, come on. Or it's caused by poverty. We faced those kind of issues. But now, with the new regime, they have really woken up, paid attention. And when South Africa speaks, then the whole of Africa will listen. And I have got great hopes for that.
I'll even pay sometimes for a woman that's ugly.
At heart I've always been a music fan. That part of me has never changed since I was a little kid, sitting in a room watching a record go round, looking at the colour of the labels.
I grew up at my grandmother's house, and she had a beautiful garden. I used to hate mowing the lawn and weeding, which is what you do when you're a kid. I loathe gardening, but I love gardens, and I have two beautiful gardens.
And now South Africa has finally woken up and it is doing great things. And if South Africa becomes the template to what AIDS is in the sub-Saharan continent, then all the other countries are going to follow suit. And Michel Sidibe, who spoke at the breakfast meeting this morning, was saying that there is so much hope for Africa now that South Africa has got its house in order.
And there's no guarantee that if you get HIV and you take these triple therapies, or whatever comes along next, that they're going to be successful for you.
And the danger is - and it's happening - is we're seeing an incredibly big rise amongst young gay people, young heterosexual people as far as catching HIV, which is, you know, in an educated country like this or in Britain, it's frightening.
And I agreed with that, and I couldn't wait to change my name anyway, because I'm not too fond of the name of Reginald. It's a very kind of '50s English name.
But we came for the Kennedy Center Awards, which was an incredible honor. Being a British person, I was bestowed this honor. And my partner and I, David, came. And we were so pleasantly surprised by George Bush and his knowledge of AIDS. He really - he treated David and I - and Laura - treated us like - they were so friendly and so courteous.