Elton John unveils new documentary and shares what he wants on his tombstone
TORONTO – At 77, Elton John says he’s “having the best time of my life.” Well, except for the whole pesky eye infection.
“I wish I could see you, but I can’t,” the music icon told the crowd Friday at a Toronto International Film Festival post-premiere Q&A for the new documentary “Elton John: Never Too Late” (streaming Dec. 13 on Disney+). “Life is a lesson that thank God I started to learn when I got to 43 years of age and it's been wonderful ever since.”
John nonetheless held court alongside filmmakers R.J. Cutler and David Furnish, John’s husband, to discuss the latest look at his life and music. “Never Too Late” focuses on his monumental output from 1970 to 1975, with hits that made John a global superstar even as he struggled offstage with sadness and drugs. The film also covers the 10 months he spent getting ready alongside Furnish and their two sons for his final touring show in 2022.
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“It just shows such a transformative life and how you can come from the depths of adversity,” Furnish said of the film. “You have all the success in the world, yet it means nothing until you have family and you have love.”
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Much of “Never Too Late” – “the spine of the film,” Cutler said – comes from intimate conversations recorded between John and Alexis Petridis for the 2019 memoir “Me.” The movie also includes audio from a 1976 cover story interview with Rolling Stone writer Cliff Jahr where John for the first time opened up about his sexuality and came out as bisexual.
“I was closed off but I was so tired of hiding away,” John said. “Everyone knew in the business I was gay. Most people knew that I was gay. (But) it was just very hard for me. No one ever asked me before Cliff if I was gay or what my sexuality was. So I didn't feel as I was hiding, but I was just very full-on in thinking that, am I ever going to find someone, being how famous I am and my sexuality?” But John also remembered it as “a wonderful time for me because at least I got that kind of thing off my back.”
The whole point of the documentary for John is “the truth should always be told,” he added. “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. When I stopped fooling myself, obviously my life turned around.”
The movie also finds John revisiting his friendship with John Lennon and sharing how he got the former Beatle onstage at a fabled Madison Square Garden show in November 1974, which would turn out to be Lennon’s last live concert performance.
John has worked with everyone from Dua Lipa (who appears briefly in the documentary) and Aretha Franklin to Stevie Wonder and Leonard Cohen.
“Every time you collaborate with someone, it's wonderful, because you learn something,” John said. He shared a funny story about recording the Ray Charles number “Born to Lose” where John was on the floor laughing after Cohen let loose with his deep voice on the first line. “He said, ‘What's wrong?’ I said, ‘Nothing's wrong, Leonard. It sounds like a ship leaving harbor.’ ”
John riffed on a number of subjects, including his favorite movies. While “The Godfather Part II” is his all-time No. 1, he also loves “Field of Dreams” because “it’s a father/son thing.” He also revealed what he wants on his tombstone: “He was a great dad and a great husband.”
Before that gets engraved, John hopes “to keep making music” and more importantly, treasure every moment he has left with Furnish and their boys.
“It's the greatest feeling I've ever had in my life, more than having the first No. 1 album in Billboard,” John said. “Yeah, that was really nice for about five minutes. But this is a lifetime. And the love I have for (Furnish’s) family, my family, my children and my friends has never been better.”
