The bitch is back? That Elton never went away

CALL me a grumpy old git, but I’ve always been suspicious of anybody who wears novelty socks, comedy neckties or the like. It is an almost certain sign that they have absolutely no sense of humour.

Perhaps the best-known and most extreme example of a grown man sporting ‘wacky’ apparel is Elton John. At various points in his career he has taken to the stage while dressed up as Donald Duck, Ronald McDonald, one of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, Mozart, a bumble bee and the Statue of Liberty.

He arrived at his own 50th birthday bash in full Louis XIV regalia, including a powdered wig that was so big it probably had to be airlifted on to his head. At least it was a fancy-dress party, to be fair.

Still, it is no surprise whatsoever that The Artist Formerly Known As Reg Dwight appears to be suffering from a deficit on the mirth front. Even at the age of 70, he is prone to hissy fits and generally behaving like a spoilt toddler.

Last week, he threw a wobbler during a concert in Las Vegas after one of the fans invited on stage during Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting forgot his manners and apparently tried to interrupt the performance. Reports say that Elton stormed off in a huff and, when he returned to finish his set, announced that he wouldn’t be asking any audience members to join him around the piano at future gigs. ‘You f **** d it up,’ he stormed. Nobody could really dispute that the pushy fan was bang out of order. Equally, though, there is a strong case to be made that Elton was the author of his own misfortune. Perhaps the best course of action would have been to grit his teeth, say nothing and make a mental note to never put himself in that position again. The other paying punters certainly didn’t deserve to be judged guilty by association.

But Elton has history when it comes to taking offence on a grand scale.

There were several examples in Elton John: Tantrums And Tiaras, the 1997 documentary made by his husband David Furnish.

Probably the funniest bit was his meltdown after a fan called out a friendly ‘Yoo-hoo’ when he was playing tennis at a hotel in Antibes. He flounced off the court and demanded a private jet to fly him home. ‘I’m on f ***** g holiday,’ he spluttered. ‘I’m never coming to the south of France again.’

Granted, Elton is a complex man and he has been through the mill over the years. It is greatly to his credit that he managed to overcome alcoholism, drug abuse and eating disorders. None of that can have been easy.

Writing in August 1992 in the preface of a book by his addiction counsellor, the now-discredited Beechy Colclough, he said of his former self: ‘The level of denial and false pride within me was enormous. As I refused all offers of help I slid further and further into the abyss. Hell on earth.’

But he eventually dragged himself back to recovery. ‘Today I am grateful for my life – I am no longer wasting it,’ he also wrote back then. ‘I realise how precious life is, and how lucky I am to have been given another chance.’

I’m delighted to hear it, but he has a funny way of showing it sometimes. Even the most sympathetic accounts of the Vegas incident make him sound like a petulant old crank. He clearly still has unresolved issues. It seems fairly obvious that someone should have a quiet word and tell him he can’t go around making a show of himself like that.

But that would require a friend who is unafraid of telling it like it is.

I would imagine friends like that are pretty thin on the ground when you are as rich, famous and needy as Elton John evidently is.

Otherwise he’d have known that going out in public dressed like an avian Disney character or a 17thcentury French monarch probably isn’t a good idea.