John’s clean break

Elton John is amazed he’s still alive, said Sarah Boseley in The Guardian (U.K.). For decades, he lived the wild rock star life: snorting vast amounts of cocaine and sleeping around without using condoms. “I should be dead—6 foot under in a wooden box,” says the singer. “I should have contracted HIV in the 1980s and died in the 1990s, just like Freddie Mercury, just like Rock Hudson. Every day I wonder, how did I survive?” He thinks his crazed behavior was driven by a desire to be popular. “I was never in the gang at school, so when I saw someone doing drugs, I thought, ‘Oh, maybe I can do that and I’ll be with the big boys.’” Realizing that he had to change his ways “or I was going to die,” John cleaned up his act in the late 1980s, and now leads a quieter family life with his husband, David Furnish, and their 18-month-old son, Zachary. He doesn’t miss his old existence. “I know when I come offstage, I’m going to be happy. I can go to bed. I don’t have to stay up all night doing drugs. I’m going to get up in the morning and see my little boy and see my partner. We have a life.”

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