Britney Spears Isn’t The First Troubled Celeb To Have Discovered A Good friend In Elton John

What’s it about Sir Elton John and lending a serving to hand to beleaguered A-listers? Information that Britney Spears and the great, bespectacled fun uncle of pop are pairing as much as drop a piano powered transforming of Sir Elton’s Tiny Dancer (title: ‘Maintain Me Nearer’) is music to our ears – even when the observe’s official launch has been paused after it was leaked late on Thursday evening. Title a extra iconic duet. We’ll have to attend.

Britney, plotting pop hits once more for the primary time in six years after being released from her controversial conservatorship, isn’t the primary troubled superstar to have turned to pricey previous Elton, virtually an ersatz counsellor today. Sober for over 30 years now, there was a time when the unfailingly beneficiant Rocket Man’s hedonism was unbounded, and as such he now features as a village elder to wayward stars a number of many years his junior. In the event you’re in bother, if nobody else may help, in case you’re fortunate sufficient to seek out him in your phonebook, perhaps you possibly can name Elton John, an A-list agony aunt, life coach and assist squad rolled into one. An inventory of the friends Elton has helped out would absolutely be bottomless. However listed below are a alternative few.

Princess Diana

The 2 met at Prince Andrew’s twenty first birthday, after Sir Elton was invited to carry out by the Queen. ‘[Diana] arrived within the ballroom and we instantly clicked,’ Elton later recalled. ‘We ended up pretending to bounce the Charleston whereas hooting on the disco’s feebleness.’ Sir Elton, a fellow bulimic, grew to become a rock of assist for Diana as her life within the public eye spiralled and commiserated with Di and Donatella over the homicide of Gianni Versace.

Eminem

The senior rocker spent 18 months making an attempt to assist Eminem kick his prescription drug behavior after a methadone overdose practically killed the Relapse rapper. ‘[Elton] had a substance-abuse downside up to now. So after I first wished to get sober, I known as him, as a result of he’s any person within the enterprise who can relate to the life-style and the way hectic issues could be,’ Eminem instructed a Detroit newspaper in 2009. ‘He understands, like, the stress and some other causes that you just wanna provide you with for doing medication.’

Michael Jackson

The disgraced pop icon devoted Blood on the Dance Flooring to Elton after serving to him beat a prescription morphine dependancy. ‘Devoted to Elton John. Thanks for all the pieces. I like you,’ he wrote within the sleeve notes. In his memoir, Me by Elton John, the Your Music singer talks of Jackson as ‘genuinely mentally in poor health, a disturbing particular person to be round’, after the singer crashed the lunch at which Elton had hoped to introduce David Furnish to his mom. ‘It was extremely unhappy, however he was somebody you couldn’t assist: he was simply gone, off in a world of his personal, surrounded by individuals who solely instructed him what he wished to listen to.’

Liz Hurley

Elton loaned the Austin Powers actress after which single mum his paparazzi-proof Windsor house whereas she recovered from the Caesarean start of her son, Damian (who was allegedly conceived throughout a contented vacation with American billionaire Steve Bing at Elton’s French villa). He and his companion, David Furnish, are additionally amongst Damian’s seven godparents.

Victoria Beckham

Posh sought refuge chez Elton in floods of tears on the top of the Spice disaster of 1998, when Geri Halliwell give up the band days earlier than the Spice Ladies’ sell-out US tour was set to start. Victoria was handled to his paternal recommendation (‘I instructed her she’s going to break down if she would not decelerate,’ he mentioned) and later ennobled Sir Elton as godfather to each Brooklyn and Romeo.

Robbie Williams

In his autobiography, Robbie Williams claimed that in 1997 Elton tried to rescue him from his addictions and whisked him off to a clinic: ‘I used to be sandwiched by two folks at the back of the automotive, so I would not attempt to commit suicide or run off,’ he wrote. ‘Elton tried to do rather a lot for me and I did not thank him sufficient.’

Lily Allen

At an awards ceremony in 2008, Elton was supposedly unimpressed by Allen’s inebriated presenting model and selected to interject. ‘Fuck off, Elton,’ she retorted. ‘I am 40 years youthful than you and have my entire life forward of me.’ To not be undone, Elton replied: ‘I might nonetheless snort you below the desk.’