This Tuesday marks the fifth anniversary of the publication of Elton John's memoir, Me -- October 15th, 2019.
With the narrative taken from 65 hours of interviews he did for the book over a couple of years with his friend, Alexis Petridis, he delves deeper into some of what was covered in his 2019 biographical jukebox musical drama film, Rocketman -- his childhood, his songwriting partnership with Bernie Taupin, coming to grips with his sexuality, transforming from Reg Dwight into Elton John, fame, his marriage to a woman, his years of addiction, owning a soccer team, his fight against AIDS, finding love and raising a family, and how to properly eat celery.
Elton said, “I [got] in trouble [by my father] if I ate celery in what was deemed 'The Wrong Way.' 'The Right Way' to eat celery, in the unlikely event that you’re interested, was apparently not to make too loud of a crunching sound when you bit into it. Once, he hit me because I was supposedly taking my school blazer off incorrectly.”
Among the revelations:
- He and his band were asked to be Jeff Beck's backing band in the early '70s.
- Yoko Ono asked him to finish the John Lennon songs, which he declined, that she eventually put together and released on the Milk and Honey album.
- And, just before the start of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour in 2018, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, which resulted in him unable to control his bladder. This meant having to wear a diaper, and he writes of urinating into it while singing “Rocket Man” during his Las Vegas residency.
Me went to number-one on the New York Times Best Sellers lists for Hardcover Nonfiction, and Combined Print and E-Book Nonfiction, and resulted in a four-million dollar lawsuit from his ex-wife, Renate Blauel.
She claimed he broke the terms of their divorce agreement by writing about their marriage, as well as featuring it in his Rocketman. They settled out of court.
Elton John on his marriage to Renate Blauel.
"It was a mistake. It was my mistake. And we don't speak. We're not on bad terms, but she just got on with her own life, which I understand. I could not leave the fact that I got married and I was a gay man out of a movie. Renate's only in the film for a very short time, we didn't need to elaborate. And I wanted it to show her as being loving and I made the mistake."