Elton John. The Rocket Man. The Pinball Wizard.
It doesn’t matter what you call him; his real title always remains: a music legend.
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While his life story was showcased in the 2019 biopic, Rocketman , there is still a lot of things that fans don’t know about Elton.
Well, it’s time to remedy that with this list.
1. His real name isn’t Elton John.
It’s actually Reginald Kenneth Dwight.
But John never felt like himself with that name. “Reg is the unhappy part of my life,” he once said, according to the singer’s biography by David Buckley .
2. He was super close to Princess Diana.
In his autobiography, Me , he revealed that he first met Diana in 1981.
It was “just before her marriage to Prince Charles. It was at Prince Andrew’s 21st birthday party at Windsor Castle. The evening was completely surreal.”
But they eventually had a falling out.
According to Elton, this was due to Diana backing out of writing the foreword in the book Rock And Royalty , by Gianni Versace.
“I think Buckingham Palace didn’t like the idea of a member of the Royal Family having anything to do with a book that featured shots of naked guys with towels draped around them.”
After they sent formal letters back and forth, they stopped talking for a while until Gianni was murdered.
At the funeral, she came up to John and said, “‘I’m so sorry. It was a silly falling-out. Let’s be friends.'”
3. Despite having a brief falling out, he always considered the late Princess Diana a great friend.
He even performed “Candle in the Wind” at her funeral in 1997.
He has also maintained a close bond with her sons, William and Harry.
4. He’s not leaving his kids any money.
He’s been a famous singer for decades, so he’s clearly got money to give. But none of that is going to his two sons, Zachary and Elijah.
“It’s terrible to give kids a silver spoon,” he said in an interview with The Daily Mirror .
Elton and his husband David Furnish are taking this approach to teach their kids respect for money.
“The boys live the most incredible lives, they’re not normal kids, and I’m not pretending they are. But you have to have some semblance of normality, some respect for money, some respect for work.”
5. He was in a soul group band in the 1960s.
This was called Bluesology. While Elton eventually went solo, he did take inspiration from his former bandmates with him…
He got his stage name, as his bandmates were saxophonist Elton Dean and singer Long John Baldry.
6. He once publicly defended Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Since Diana’s passing, Elton has kept an eye out on her children, William and Harry.
He even lent his private plane to Harry. However, this led to a lot of backlash, as people criticized Harry for impacting the environment.
Instead of letting the couple catch flack, he stood up for them.
He criticized the media for being so hard on the couple.
“I am deeply distressed by today’s distorted and malicious account in the press surrounding the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s private stay at my home in Nice last week,” he wrote on Twitter.
7. He has names for all of his pianos.
Most are named after female singers, such as Aretha Franklin, Diana Krall, and Nina Simone.
His most expensive piano is called Blossom, after jazz singer Blossom Dearie.
8. He once spent $425,000 on flowers.
What he was doing with all these flowers, we’ll never know, but he did once defend his right to buy them by saying, “Well, I like flowers.”
Now, if only he could grow some money flowers and throw some cash at us.
9. He was a musical prodigy.
He taught himself how to play the piano at the age of three! He even did this entirely by ear.
His talent earned him a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music in London at age 11.
10. He had a falling out with David Bowie.
While they were friends at one point, the two rock stars were at odds after Bowie called Elton “rock ‘n roll’s token queen” in an interview with Rolling Stone .
11. He once paid $1.3 million for a piano.
Woah. In his defense, this is one nice piano .
The Yamaha took four years to make and has a ton of cool features, such as LED screens that would react to his playing and take photos and videos.
12. He and his songwriting partner, Bernie Taupin, have a unique way of writing songs.
The pair have been working together for over 50 years!
During this time, they’ve honed quite an unusual system.
Believe it or not, they never work in the same room together.
Instead, Taupin writes lyrics and then John composes.
They’ve got their system down pat, as it only takes them around 15-20 minutes to create a song.
13. He struggled with addiction.
It was fame, unfortunately, that caused this.
“The reason I became a drug addict is because I didn’t know how to deal with life on life’s terms,” he told CBC . “I was on stage, I got applause and I felt safe on stage. When I came off stage, I was stuck with me.”
At one point, he almost died at the hands of his addiciton.
“I was immature. When I got sober, I started trying to become an adult instead of a child,” he said.
Thankfully, he has since gotten sober.
