KMazur/WireImageIn the newly penned chapter of his autobiography Me, which was released Tuesday in the U.K., Elton John has come clean about why he and his old pal Rod Stewart, whom he once counted among his nearest and dearest, don’t talk anymore.
As excerpted in the British tabloid The Sun, Elton confirms that the feud began in 2018 after the “Maggie May” star went on Watch What Happens Live and said it was “dishonest” of Elton to bill his tour as “Farewell” engagement, noting that it wasn’t very “rock and roll” and that it “stinks of selling tickets.”
Elton writes, “I certainly didn’t feel like I needed a lecture on the feral spirit of rock and roll from someone who’d spent most of the last decade crooning his way through the Great American Songbook and ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.’”
Elton continues, “What’s more, I thought he had a f***ing [nerve], complaining about me promoting a tour while he was sat on a TV show promoting his own tour.”
Rod later said he regretted his comments. But Elton claims when he reached out to Rod, saying he loved him and they’d “known each other far too long to fall out over something like that,” he never heard back.
He also claims Rod’s manager said Rod couldn’t talk to him on the phone because he was on “constant vocal rest” — this despite Rod’s continued appearances on talk shows.
“I had no idea what I’d done to upset him so much. Which was ironic, given the hours I’d put in over the years deliberately trying to annoy him,” Elton writes, referring to their longtime tradition of pranking each other.
“Perhaps it is inevitable that a relationship based on friendly rivalry and one-upmanship would sour eventually,” writes Elton.
By Andrea Dresdale
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