Elton John recently said on the US talk show “Today” about his cocaine addiction, the drug had made him open up. “I loved her because she made me talk. I was always so shy,” he revealed on the show. Little did he know at the time that he would be addicted for over ten years. Looking back, he calls the time of his drug addiction the darkest of his life. Shortly after his good friend Ryan White died of AIDS in 1990, John turned his life around and got clean.
The 76-year-old has repeatedly used his own experiences to help others. Robbie Williams for example. In 1996, after a night of drugs and alcohol, Williams woke up in his bedroom surrounded by cigarette butts and dried food and realized he needed support to beat his addiction. He recalled Elton John offering to help him years earlier and called the singer. “I called him and said, ‘I need help,'” Williams told his biographer Chris Heath in a conversation nearly 20 years ago (published in The Guardian). “Elton was in Atlanta and he just said, ‘Go to my house.’ So I drove to his house in Windsor,” Williams revealed. John sent him a package with new clothes. Williams spent two weeks at the property and regularly received calls from Elton John. Williams should still relapse. Months later, the two met again. With tears in his eyes, the British singer told Williams he urgently needed to go to rehab. “I’ll organize that,” said John. But Williams fought back, wanting to finish his album first. The next morning, Elton John surprised him along with husband David Furnish and several doctors. They forced Williams into a car and drove to a clinic. Elton John kidnapped him and forced him to turn his life around.
However, it would be many years before Robbie Williams would actually get clean. But thanks to Elton John, he took the first step towards a healthier future.
Donatella Versace also connects an emotional phase of her life with Elton John. Today the designer even says the singer saved her life. In 2004, John organized a surprise 18th birthday party for Donatella’s daughter, Allegra. But in fact the celebration was only a pretext and became an intervention. John arranged for Versace to be flown to The Meadows rehab in Arizona.
An intervention can end dangerously, Elton John now reveals in the “Irish Times”. Especially if the addict is not ready to change their life. “With Donatella, I knew she was ready because she came three weeks early to see me play in Reggio Calabria. She was in a terrible state and I knew she wanted to give me a message: ‘I need help ‘I need this now, I’m at rock bottom.’ It didn’t take much persuasion to leave,” he reveals.
Rapper Eminem is also one of Elton John’s protégés. In a radio interview in 2010, John revealed that he would help the American to overcome his pill addiction. John now says that offering that support to others is one of his responsibilities. “You give them your phone number, they take it, you make sure you call them, check them up, see if they’re okay,” he says.
That’s all it takes to save a loved one.
This article was first published in October 2019 on the occasion of Elton John’s autobiography
Quellen: “Today Show” / “The Guardian” / “Daily News” / “Irish Times”
