Music

Gay rights are going backwards in the US, says Elton John

Singer refuses to do residencies in the US as he calls the treatment of LGBTQ+ people in Florida a virus

British musician Sir Elton John departs the High Court in London, Britain, 27 March 2023. John has appeared at the High Court in a hearing related to his privacy lawsuit against Associated Newspapers. John appeared along with others who are suing the Daily Mail newspaper over phone tapping and breaches of privacy.

Nadia Khomami
Tue Jun 20 2023 - 12:21

Gay rights are going backwards in the US, where “disgraceful” laws are discriminating against LGBTQ+ people, Elton John has said.

The singer said he would no longer do residencies in the US, though he would consider more live shows elsewhere.

“It’s all going pear-shaped in America,” he told the Radio Times. “There’s violence, [discriminatory] laws enacted in Florida, which are disgraceful. There’s a law now that, if you visit a doctor in Florida, they can refuse to treat you if you’re gay, which I find just unbelievable. We seem to be going backwards. And that spreads. It’s like a virus that the LGBTQ+ movement is suffering.”

The singer, who founded the Elton John Aids Foundation, which has raised more than $525 million (€480 million) and by its own estimation saved 5 million lives, expressed his deep unhappiness about the growing tide of homophobia, which he said extended to Britain.

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“I don’t like it at all. It’s a growing swell of anger and homophobia that’s around America. I don’t know if it’s around Britain, because I haven’t been here that much. But I feel that the Phillip Schofield thing has been totally homophobic. If it was a straight guy in a fling with a young woman, it wouldn’t even make the papers,” he said.

The 76-year-old, who is headlining Glastonbury’s Pyramid stage next Sunday, decided to embark on his final tour – Farewell Yellow Brick Road – seven years ago to spend more time with his sons.

Though it was originally envisaged as a three-year tour, the pandemic – and a hip replacement – wrecked those plans, and by the time it finally ends in Stockholm on July 8th, it will have lasted for almost five years and encompassed 333 shows.

But despite the extensive victory lap, he said he was not completely done with performing live. “I said when I announced the farewell tour that maybe I would do a residency like Kate Bush did at Hammersmith [Apollo in 2014], but not in America. I will not do it in America,” he said.

He has sold about 300 million records in a career spanning more than half a century, and is the highest-grossing solo artist of all time, with his earnings totalling $1.898 billion, said Billboard magazine.

In recent years, he has found chart success through collaborations with contemporary hitmakers such as Britney Spears and Dua Lipa, which he called “an incredible boost” in his later career.

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The veteran musician, who became a larger-than-life public figure in the 1970s and developed a reputation for excess – immortalised in the 1997 documentary Tantrums & Tiaras, by his husband, David Furnish – is now performing at Glastonbury for the first time.

“It’s the only really important festival for me in the world, to be honest. It’s all about music,” he says. “Some American ones are good but some are a bit posey. Glastonbury gives new acts a chance.”

The singer has never been shy about speaking his mind: his 2019 memoir, Me, was full of anecdotes of encounters with leading public figures, including once pelting Bob Dylan with oranges for not knowing how to play charades. Last year, he announced he would no longer use Twitter after a change in its policy that he said would allow “misinformation to flourish unchecked”.

When asked what he would like to be remembered for, Elton John, who champions new artists on his Rocket Hour radio show on Apple Music, said it was for being kind and helpful to musicians – before revising his answer to wanting to be a great father.

“The hardest thing in the world is to be a good parent,” he said. “And I never thought I would be a parent. But I love the challenge of it. It gives me so much joy and pleasure to be with those boys and David. It’s just phenomenal.” – Guardian

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