Elton John Opens Up About Virus That “Nearly Killed” Him After Prostate Cancer Surgery
Elton John, 72, opened up to Today about the time he nearly died from life-threatening complications following prostate cancer surgery in 2017.
John said he was in “great pain” and “shaking with fever” from an infection that caused him to spend 11 days in the hospital.
John talks about the experience in his upcoming autobiography Me.
Two years after his near-death experience in 2017, Elton John is finally opening up about the infection that almost killed him. In an interview with NBC’s Harry Smith, John said that he contracted a life-threatening infection in South America while he was recovering from surgery to remove his prostate.
“I had complications as a result of that, which is very unlucky, and I was in great pain,” he told Today. “I came back to England and (went) straight into the hospital because I was shaking with fever, and I picked up a really strong virus down there, which nearly killed me.”
John, who wrote about the experience in his upcoming autobiography Me, spent 11 days in the hospital and wasn’t sure if he’d make it home to husband David Furnish and their two children. “I didn’t really know how close to death I was,” he said. “I was ill because I kept saying, ‘Please let me get well. I want to see my kids.’ But I had tubes coming out of every part of my body, and it took me seven weeks to recover from that when I went home.”
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The music icon made the decision to have his prostate gland removed when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2017, a disease that impacts 1 in 9 men.
“I said, ‘I don’t care, take it out,’” he told Today. “I’ve had enough sex to last me a lifetime. I have children. I want to see them. I want to grow up with them. It was a very easy decision to make.”
But then, John experienced the life-threatening complications. He took the brush with death as a sign to retire from touring so that he could spend more time with his family.
“In a strange way, it felt like the time I spent recuperating was the answer to my prayers: if you want more time, you need to learn to live like this, you have to slow down,” he wrote in his new book, The Guardian reported. “It was like being shown a different life, a life I realized I loved more than being on the road. Music was the most wonderful thing, but it still didn’t sound as good as Zachary chattering about what had happened at Cubs or football practice.”
Summer’s over. Back to school. Back to work.....! @davidfurnish #FYBR
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John, who is on his final Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, also opened up about his cocaine addiction, his family, and his relationships with Princess Diana and John Lennon in Me.
He also spoke about his relationship with Ryan White, an 18-year-old with hemophilia who contracted AIDs from a contaminated blood transfusion. White, who passed away in 1990, inspired John to get sober.
“When he died, being there in Indianapolis and coming back to the hotel complaining about the wallpaper, the décor in the room and thinking, ‘You are the most ungrateful little bastard,’” he said. “You complain about everything. This boy has never complained about contracting HIV and AIDS from a blood transfusion. He’s never complained.”
John founded the Elton John AIDs Foundation in 1992 and has raised billions of dollars for AIDs research, especially as the singer has lost many friends to the disease in addition to White. “I could have been one of them,” he said. “I was very lucky. I was blessed. And I always thought it was a reason that when I got sober, that I would give something back.”
John’s autobiography is out Tuesday, October 15.
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