Elton John opened up about fame and family on Saturday night after the world premiere of Elton John: Never Too Late at the Toronto Film Festival.
“Fame is a dangerous thing if you don’t have something else, and that something else is honesty, and if you don’t have honesty to go with fame, then you’re going to be in real, real trouble, like I was before I got sober in 1990. It’s been 34 years now,” John said during a post-screening Q&A for the film directed by R.J. Cutler and David Furnish, his husband.
John added family — which includes the two sons he and Furnish have raised — has meant the world to him, more than fame itself. “My life turned around. The thing I know about the movie the most is I have him [Furnish], I have my two sons, I’m very proud of what I’ve achieved,” he insisted.
John said he will continue to create music, despite ending his touring career in 2022. But family comes first in his retirement. “This is the greatest feeling I have had in my life, more than having the first No. 1 album on Billboard. Yeah, that was really nice for about five minutes. This is a lifetime,” he added.
“The love I have for this family, my children and my friends, has never been better. And listen, I’m 77 years old and I’m having the best time of my life,” John said, before adding: “On my tombstone, I don’t want it to say he sold a million records. I just want it to say he was a great dad and great husband.”
Elton John: Never Too Late, in its use of archival footage and interviews to show John at the height of his career from 1970 to 1975, reveals a musician who was a genius on stage, but entirely unhappy and unloved when not playing in front of adoring fans.
The documentary follows John as he looks back on his life and the early days of his 50-year career, and it does that by going back and forth between the lead-up to the musician’s iconic 1975 concert at Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles as his fame surged, and preparations for his final concert in North America at Dodger Stadium in 2022.
John insisted on hiding his sexuality until coming out in 1976 during an interview with Rolling Stone, which had only been preceded by struggles with addiction, changed his life. “I didn’t feel as if I was hiding, but I was just very forlorn in thinking am I ever going to find someone, being how famous I am and with my sexuality,” John recounted.
From the moment he came out, John said he began a journey of first-time honesty in his life. “It took me so long to tell the truth, and it made me so unhappy, and it was so stupid, the amount of years that I lost by not telling the truth and by fooling myself. And when I stopped fooling myself, my life turned around,” he explained.
John also added: “Kindness will always out, and that’s what I hope for the American election,” with an eye to the U.S. presidential election in November.
Co-director Cutler made a faux pas when he offered praise to John and Furnish as he revealed the duo will appear in the upcoming Spinal Tap sequel from director Rob Reiner set for a 2025 release. “Oh, is it not announced?” Cutler asked when he heard a “shhh” from over his shoulder.
“The fucking idiot,” John then joked affectionately to Cutler with accompanying laughter from the Roy Thomson Hall audience.
Before launching on Disney+, Elton John: Never Too Late will debut with a limited theatrical run on Nov. 15 in the U.S. and U.K.
The original documentary from Disney Branded Television is produced by Rocket Entertainment and This Machine Filmworks (a part of Sony Pictures Television) and is directed by R.J. Cutler and David Furnish. Cutler and Furnish also serve as producers alongside Trevor Smith. Elise Pearlstein, Mark Blatty, Luke Lloyd Davies, Rachael Paley, Jane Cha Cutler and John Battsek serve as executive producers.
