After almost 60 years of composing chart-topping songs, Elton John recently revealed that he’s already written a heartbreaking epitaph to be chiseled into his gravestone.
Thanks to a new right hip and two new knees, Elton John is still standing, but the 77-year-old singer doesn’t “have tonsils, adenoids or an appendix. I don’t have a prostate.”
“To be honest with you, there’s not much of me left,” said John, who’s also has been partially blind since an infection damaged the optic nerve in his right eye.
“In fact, the only thing left to me is my left hip. But I’m still here. And I can’t thank you [enough], you’re the people that made me,” John told the audience at the New York premiere of Elton John: Never Too Late, a documentary directed by David Furnish, his husband since 2014.
‘Utter happiness and bliss’
“If you’d had said to me 10 years ago [that] I’d be…married to the man I love and have two beautiful children I would have said, ‘You put acid in my drink,’” John said of the family he shares with Furnish, including two surrogate sons, Zachary, now 13, and Elijah, 11.
The “Tiny Dancer” singer added, “But life throws you challenges, and life throws you curveballs – great curveballs.”
Later, the gushing father discussed the “utopia” he discovered when he became a husband and a father: “I found complete and utter happiness and bliss when I met David and when I had my children, our children. And it satisfied me so much. I’ve never felt happiness like I have now.”
“I’m still going to have music in my life. But the most important thing in my life are David, Zachary and Elijah, and my family and my friends. I found utopia and I’m so thrilled,” said the singer, who played his final “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” show in July 2023, an international tour that started in 2018.
‘Frailties’ apparent
Today the “Rocket Man” singer – sober since July 2023 and Eminem’s sponsor – is slowing down but embracing the years he has left as a family man.
“I’ve lived an incredible life, but it’s been a hell of a life, and it’s been a slog,” explains the “Crocodile Rock” singer, who in December 2024, was named by Time as “Icon of the Year.”
“I didn’t want to fade into the twilight. I wanted to fade into the sunlight. And we did.”
Though his immeasurable contributions to the industry will keep him shining bright for an eternity, Time reports that the five-time Grammy winner is showing some physical wear and can no longer hide “some frailties,” which “are apparent.”
“He favors comfy designer tracksuits and sneakers. He doesn’t hear too well or walk with confidence.”
Reflecting on his iconic career, John says, “It is very tiring. I am used to it. I am a veteran at it, but this is where you start to think about mortality.”
He continues, “This is the latter time of my life. I don’t know how much time I have left. You think about that more when you get to my age. You think about life and death. You think, ‘Well, I just want to be where I want to be now.'”
Heartbreaking five words
Where he wants to be is “together” with his two boys and Furnish, who recently confessed he’s been forced to “confront” the “reality” of John’s mortality.
“In my mind in my mind I sort of think Elton is going to live forever – we all think that – and Elton is so vibrant that it’s an easy thing to believe, but it forces you to confront that reality.”
At least the singer won’t have the opportunity to fulfill one of his older wishes: “Elton used to say, ‘I want to die onstage,’” Furnish told Time. “It never made me particularly happy.”
Whenever John dies and wherever it might be, the “Candle in the Wind” singer remains positive of the legacy he’s leaving behind – and it has nothing to do with his six decades of delivering hit songs.
“On my gravestone, all I want it to say is ‘He was a great dad,’” the hitmaker adds of the only words he wants carved into his headstone.
This is such a sweet tribute to his sons! Please let us know what you think of this story and then share it with others so we can hear from them!
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