What is it about Sir Elton John and lending a helping hand to beleaguered A-listers? News that Britney Spears and the great, bespectacled fun uncle of pop are pairing up to drop a piano powered reworking of Sir Elton’s Tiny Dancer (title: ‘Hold Me Closer’) is music to our ears – even if the track’s official release has been paused after it was leaked late on Thursday night. Name a more iconic duet. We’ll have to wait.
Britney, plotting pop hits again for the first time in six years after being released from hercontroversial conservatorship, isn’t the first troubled celebrity to have turned to dear old Elton, practically an ersatz counsellor these days. Sober for over 30 years now, there was a time when the unfailingly generous Rocket Man’s hedonism was unbounded, and as such he now functions as a village elder to wayward stars several decades his junior. If you’re in trouble, if no one else can help, if you’re lucky enough to find him in your phonebook, maybe you can call Elton John, an A-list agony aunt, life coach and support squad rolled into one. A list of the pals Elton has helped out would surely be bottomless. But here are a choice few.
Princess Diana
The two met at Prince Andrew’s 21st birthday, after Sir Elton was invited to perform by the Queen. ‘[Diana] arrived in the ballroom and we immediately clicked,’ Elton later recalled. ‘We ended up pretending to dance the Charleston while hooting at the disco’s feebleness.’ Sir Elton, a fellow bulimic, became a rock of support for Diana as her life in the public eye spiralled and commiserated with Di and Donatella over the murder of Gianni Versace.
Eminem
The senior rocker spent 18 months trying to help Eminem kick his prescription drug habit after a methadone overdose nearly killed the Relapse rapper. ‘[Elton] had a substance-abuse problem in the past. So when I first wanted to get sober, I called him, because he’s somebody in the business who can relate to the lifestyle and how hectic things can be,’ Eminem told a Detroit newspaper in 2009. ‘He understands, like, the pressure and any other reasons that you wanna come up with for doing drugs.’
Michael Jackson
The disgraced pop icon dedicated Blood on the Dance Floor to Elton after helping him beat a prescription morphine addiction. ‘Dedicated to Elton John. Thank you for everything. I love you,’ he wrote in the sleeve notes. In his memoir, Me by Elton John, the Your Song singer talks of Jackson as ‘genuinely mentally ill, a disturbing person to be around', after the singer crashed the lunch at which Elton had hoped to introduce David Furnish to his mother. 'It was incredibly sad, but he was someone you couldn’t help: he was just gone, off in a world of his own, surrounded by people who only told him what he wanted to hear.’
Liz Hurley
Elton loaned the Austin Powers actress and then single mum his paparazzi-proof Windsor home while she recovered from the Caesarean birth of her son, Damian (who was allegedly conceived during a happy holiday with American billionaire Steve Bing at Elton's French villa). He and his partner, David Furnish, are also among Damian’s seven godparents.
Victoria Beckham
Posh sought refuge chez Elton in floods of tears at the height of the Spice crisis of 1998, when Geri Halliwell quit the band days before the Spice Girls' sell-out US tour was set to begin. Victoria was treated to his paternal advice (‘I told her she's going to collapse if she doesn't slow down,’ he said) and later ennobled Sir Elton as godfather to both Brooklyn and Romeo.
Robbie Williams
In his autobiography, Robbie Williams claimed that in 1997 Elton attempted to rescue him from his addictions and whisked him off to a clinic: ‘I was sandwiched by two people in the back of the car, so I wouldn't try to commit suicide or run off,’ he wrote. ‘Elton tried to do a lot for me and I didn't thank him enough.’
Lily Allen
At an awards ceremony in 2008, Elton was supposedly unimpressed by Allen's inebriated presenting style and chose to interject. ‘Fuck off, Elton,’ she retorted. ‘I'm 40 years younger than you and have my whole life ahead of me.’ Not to be undone, Elton replied: 'I could still snort you under the table.’
