marieclaire.com.au 217ish arts TV program Aquarius. But the
big task was to crack America.I
n 1973 the critics loved John, but it
was another two years before he
entered the Billboard charts at
No. 1 with his album Captain Fan-
tastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. Next
thing, he was playing stadiums. But
there was too much money and too
much adoration. It was hard to keep his
feet on the ground. The costumes got
crazier while the drinking and drug use
went up a notch.
He started shouting at people; he
once yelled at a hotel concierge to turn
down the storm outside. There was a
string of boyfriends, but none lasted.
On Valentine’s Day 1984, John
shocked many by marrying a woman
while on tour in Australia. At St Mark’s
Church, Darling Point, John, wearing a
straw boater with a lilac taffeta band
and matching bow tie, wed German
sound engineer Renate Blauel, to whom
he had proposed just four days earlier.
Rocker Rod Stewart’s message to the
happy couple? “You may be still stand-
ing, but we’re all on the fucking floor.”
Blauel, who now lives in the UK,
has never sold her story, but it appears
the union was motivated by friendship
and John’s desire to have kids. None
eventuated and the pair split four years
later. By this point, John’s drug use was
out of control. When in 1992 his boy-
friend at the time described him as a
“drug addict, a bulim-
ic, a sex addict, a food
addict, an overeater
and an alcoholic”, the
penny dropped. “I
said, ‘You know what?
You’re absolutely
right. I give in. I sur-
render,’” he said. Afterrehab he reconnected with his music.
“Everything came alive again.” In 1993
he asked a friend to rustle up some
people for a dinner. One of them was
David Furnish, a Canadian filmmaker.
“I was attracted to David immedi-
ately,” John told Parade magazine
recently. “He was very well dressed, very
shy. The next night we had dinner. After
it, we consummated our relationship.
We fell in love very quickly.”
This was a new kind of relationship
for John – honest and equal. “I’d always
choose someone younger,” he said. “I
wanted to smother them with love.”
Meanwhile, the AIDS virus was
sweeping through the entertainment
industry, cruelly picking off gay men in
their prime. For John, who lost many
friends and colleagues this way, it was a
devastating time, but also one that gal-
vanised him to use his fame and fortune
for good. In 1992 he established the
Elton John AIDS Foundation. Today, it
has raised more than $443 million.
In 2005, John and Furnish held a
civil commitment ceremony in Wind-
sor. In 2008, Furnish told a British jour-
nalist that they spent many quiet nights
in, binge-watching Sex and the City and
eating beans on toast.
Furnish was there for John during
tougher times, for example, when John’s
friend Princess Diana, whom he’d met
in 1981 when she was 19, froze him out
over her inclusion in the 1996 Versace
book Rock and Royalty, which raised
money for the Elton
John AIDS Founda-
tion. Diana was wor-
ried that it would
upset the Queen. But
when John sang “Can-
dle in the Wind” at her
funeral in September
1997 , he became aBritish national treasure. The following
year he was knighted – arise, Sir Elton.
The next decade was calmer, but no
less full. John turned his talents to the-
atre, teaming up with lyricist Tim Rice
for The Lion King, then tackling Billy
Elliot – a film close to his heart. Back in
2000, at its premiere at Cannes Film
Festival, John’s old feelings about Stan-
ley Dwight had hit him with force. “As
Jamie Bell [who played Billy] took a vic-
torious lap of the cinema, I had to be
helped up the aisle sobbing,” said John.
“The film had really got under my skin.”
Today John is a father himself, and
his parenting style couldn’t be more
different from Stanley’s. On becoming a
dad, he has said: “That was the greatest
decision I’ve made, well, we’ve made, in
the last six years, is to have those boys.”
In December, on his second wedding
anniversary, John posted on Instagram:
“David and I feel very blessed. After 23
years together, we are blissfully happy.”Clockwise from far left:
at The Lion King premiere
in London in 1999; with
David Furnish at their 2005
commitment ceremony; with
Boy George and Caitlin Jenner
in 2016; with Furnish and
their sons; marrying Renate
Blauel in Sydney in 1984.LIFE STORIES