What became of Elton’s vanishing WIFE
... and the real reason she’s come back to haunt him
Renate over dinner and she laughed, thinking it was a joke. ‘Up to that point there hadn’t been a hint of actual romance between us, not so much as a kiss. If I had any sense I would have left it at that.’
Instead he was ‘infatuated with the idea of getting married … it felt remarkably like being in love’ and he proposed again in an Indian restaurant. They were married four days later.
Up to that point, Renate’s life had been relatively obscure. Raised in Munich in a middle-class family — dad Joachim was a publisher — she lived modestly in a £34-a-week flat in a house in Kilburn, London.
Elton’s biographer Philip Norman notes in his book that their affair ‘proceeded with as much propriety as if they were teenage virgins.
‘In Sydney, even after their engagement, they continued to occupy separate rooms. Elton was constantly attentive and chivalrous. He would make jokes. She would smile. He seemed as delighted and excited as a person could be.’
Elton hints in his book that they had indeed signed a non-disclosure agreement. ‘Renate and I agreed that we would never publicly discuss the intimate detail of our marriage and I am respecting that,’ he wrote. At the time, though, he was happy to talk about their union in public.
He told an interviewer that there would be no dinner parties or discos for them — instead they would stay home and hoped to start a family.
He said: ‘We just want to spend some time together. We want to have a home life. I simply want to be a family man.’
However, in April 1984 he left Renate behind in their home, Woodside, in Old Windsor, and embarked on a European tour. In his absence she remodelled the kitchen and Elton told her that she should also decorate and furnish a suite of rooms for herself. He said that he wanted to have children — ideally two, as he had been an only child.
But his sexual orientation meant that the marriage brought only misery. Philip Norman believes that Elton thought the marriage would: ‘stamp out his bisexuality … but within a short time he realised it hadn’t.’
Norman, whose definitive book, Sir Elton, was re-published last year, said: ‘He told me that he got married to please his mother. He felt uneasy and guilty about it long after he came out.
‘It is quite impossible to follow his thought processes but perhaps the idea was to have a marriage like Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West where each party was free to pursue their own interests.’
BY 1986 rumours were circulating that all was not well. Renate would come with him to Watford Football Club, where he was chairman, and to music industry events. She also accompanied him to the wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson.
There was a thank you to Renate on his next album, Leather Jackets, under a pseudonym. ‘Special thanks to Lady Choc Ice for being a continued source of inspiration.’
And yet it was said that by then they were leading largely separate lives. Renate denied this and claimed that she and Elton were planning a second marriage ceremony. ‘I really don’t know where these awful rumours started. The truth is, we are as close as we ever were, and this is very close.’
In a separate interview Elton said: ‘It’s about time I saw the wife again … we’ve had to put up with an awful lot of nonsense during our time apart. The fact is our marriage is fine. I love her, she loves me and we are happy.’
But she wasn’t among the revellers at a huge party for 350 guests thrown in March 1987 to mark his 40th birthday.
Elton told guests that she was absent due to the flu but the next day his manager John Reid issued a statement to confirm that they had decided to ‘continue living apart’ — although at that stage with no plans for a divorce.
Renate had moved into a flat in Kensington provided by Elton, who persisted in saying that they might work it out.
He said: ‘The marriage isn’t over per se. We’ve just separated for a little while. We’re known as The Odd Couple, apparently. That’s fair enough. But we still get on very well. I still love her. She still loves me.’
There were reports that he had bought a new £75,000 marital bed from Princess Margaret’s son Viscount Linley, with E and R on its headboard.
In private though, the marriage was beyond repair. In October, Elton announced that he was selling much of the collection of furniture and antiques from Woodside. His friend Nina Myskow observed: ‘What he was really clearing out was Renate.’ The divorce ‘by mutual consent’ was announced on November 18.
Renate’s statement blamed work — she was still a sound engineer — for their troubles. ‘Both of us have been and will be so busy with our own work commitments that we are seeing too little of each other. For that reason it seems unavoidable that we are growing apart. We are, however, parting on the most amicable terms and genuinely intend to remain best friends. I am obviously saddened to see our marriage end, and I wish Elton all the happiness in the world and I know that he wishes me the same.’
Elton deeply regretted the divorce, which was never about work but about what he calls the ‘never ending delusional bull***’ of his cocaine-soaked life at the time. In an Instagram post he said: ‘I denied who I really was, which caused my wife sadness and caused me huge guilt and regret.’
Biographer Philip Norman says: ‘He had bourgeois scruples about the marriage which you might not expect, but as a child of the 1950s he was in the habit of feeling guilty about everything.’
In his book, Elton reflected on the divorce: ‘We had been married for four years. It was the right thing to do but it was a horrible feeling. I had broken the heart of someone I loved and who loved me unconditionally, someone I couldn’t fault in any way at all. Despite all the pain, there was no acrimony involved.’
He added: ‘When I had children, I invited her to Woodside because I wanted her to meet them; I wanted to see her, I wanted her to be part of our lives, and us part of hers, in some way. But she didn’t want to, and I didn’t push the issue. I have to respect how she feels.’
Now, though, he has the unappealing possibility of facing Renate in court.
‘She was everything I would want a woman to be, if I was straight’