HAPPY SIR ELTON 'My special gift to my sons'
THE SINGER WILL MAKE SURE HIS SONS WILL NOT BE SPOILED BRATS
At the peak of the spending addiction that replaced his addiction to cocaine, Sir Elton John blew $515,000 on flowers in 20 months. His justification was simple – “I like flowers”.
He also liked clothes, piling up Versace shirts and suits in every colour. His donkeys and Shetland ponies lived in a castle, complete with a moat, in the grounds of his home in Windsor. As for glasses, he owned 3000 pairs. No wonder he burned through around $2.65 million every month.
As he approaches his
70th birthday, Elton is more concerned about instilling a sense of the value of money in his two sons, Zachary (6) and Elijah (4).
“I came from a very working class family and was born in a council estate house,” he explains. “I earned everything I did from hard work and that’s the way they’ve got to do it as well.
“They have to do chores in the house – take their plates to be cleaned, help in the kitchen, tidy their rooms and help in the garden, and each time they do, they get a star to put on these charts they’ve made.”
And while Elton BC (that’s Before Children) would “just go out shopping”, his biggest indulgence today is a $20 pizza from the local takeaway.
Of course, many men mellow with age but the real reason behind this transformation is the love of a good man, his husband David Furnish (54).
“He saved me,” he says quietly.
They met in 1993 when
David went to a dinner party at Elton’s home and have been together pretty much ever since. They celebrated their civil partnership in 2005, on the day it came into law in the UK, and married nine years later.
“If you’d 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,” Elton admits.
“But life throws you challenges and life throws you curveballs, and these two children have come along at a time I never thought I’d have children. They are the greatest thing in our lives. There are no words to describe how much we love these boys. They’re amazing.”
Elton and David are decidedly hands-on with their sons, who were born in the US to a surrogate mother after both men contributed sperm.
“I’m on the school run whenever I’m home,” tells Elton proudly. “We just went to Disneyland, we’ve been skiing, we get pizza.
“They’re not that keen on what I do,” he adds wryly. “They’re more interested in their Lego.”
He’s the first to admit, too, that the adoring public who have bought an estimated
300 million of his records and helped him to amass a $350m fortune aren’t as interested in his music as they once were. “My records don’t sell any more because people have enough Elton John records in their collection.”
Even so, he has no intention of retiring, despite a spate of rumours alleging that he would finally quit on his landmark birthday, March 25. His Final Curtain tour is expected to last, on and off, until 2020, interspersed with residencies in Las Vegas.
This approach allows him to continue to perform and spend more time with his adored family.
“The simple truth is I want to spend more time with my family and less time touring,” he reveals. “I am all too aware of how precious the time ahead is. My sons are growing up so quickly, their early years are just flying by and I want to be there with them.”
He will also devote more time to the Elton John Aids Foundation, which has raised more than $485m to tackle the condition. His birthday will not be marked with a big party but by a fundraiser in Los Angeles.
But his sons remain the priority – although they will not be inheriting his fortune.
“Having children changed everything about my life. I’ve learned that the simplest things – like having a minute with them – are worth more than any painting, any
photograph, any house or any hit record.
“Of course I want to leave my boys in a very sound financial state. But it’s terrible to give kids a silver spoon. It ruins their life. 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. They’ve got to learn the value of doing something and earning something for themselves.”
It’s a lesson that the man born Reginald Hercules Dwight has learned well. “That’s what we want to pass on to them,” he nods. “Some wisdom.”
‘ It’s terrible to give kids a silver spoon. It ruins their life’