Sir Elton John came out as gay in 1988, although he had previously mentioned to Rolling Stone in 1976 that he was attracted to both men and women, per HuffPost. “Nobody asked me,” he reasoned on the TODAY show in 2012 about why he didn’t make an official announcement for so long. “When (journalist) Cliff Jahr asked me in Rolling Stone, ‘I’m gonna ask you a question, but if you don’t want to answer it, I’m gonna turn the tape recorder off’ And I said, ‘You’re gonna ask me if I’m gay or not.’ And he said, ‘How did you know that?’ I said, ‘I’ve been waiting for people to ask me this. It’s not exactly a secret. I live with my manager. I’m openly gay outside. I don’t have a girlfriend… I just thought it was common knowledge.’”
The five-time Grammy winner was married to his ex-wife, Renate Blauel, between 1984 and 1988 — the year he came out as gay. A few years later, he met his future husband, David Furnish. The couple has been together since 1993 and walked down the aisle two decades later in 2014. They have supported each other through everything, including health challenges. In 2024, the well-known singer revealed he had lost his eyesight after suffering a severe eye infection in July. However, during a Devil Wears Prada musical in London on December 1, 2024, he shared that his husband has been his “rock” during this difficult time, according to multiple reports. Read on to learn about David and his relationship with Elton.
David is Canadian and was born on Oct. 25, 1962. He grew up in a middle-class family and was the middle child of three brothers. He was a hard worker his entire life and got a job as soon as he could. Over the years, he was a newspaper delivery boy, a lawn mower, a babysitter, a waiter, and more. After high school, he attended the University of Western Ontario for business studies and kept his same work ethic. “People who partied their first year away were the ones whose parents paid for everything. It was my money, I worked all those years, all those jobs. I studied really, really hard, rather boringly,” he recalled to The Star in 2015.
He came out to his mother between his second and third years at university. “I remember my mom saying: ‘I love you and I support you, but all I look at is a life of unhappiness, isolation, prejudice and illness,’” he told The Star. He added that his mom also said it broke her heart to think of him not being able to have children.
After college, David accepted an advertising role at Ogilvy & Mather. A few years later, he jumped at the opportunity to transfer to the company’s London offices. Sadly, his career move was less influenced by his love for advertising and more influenced by his insecurities. “I was running away because I had to come out of the closet. By the time I left Toronto, I was truly living a double life,” he remembered. “I had a girlfriend, and I would leave her flat and go and have sex with a man afterwards. It was not the most honest and healthy and happy way to be living your life.”
David resigned from his position after he started dating Elton and switched to filmmaking. He notably directed the 1997 Elton John documentary Tantrums & Tiaras. He’s also known for producing 2019’s Rocketman and 2011’s Gnomeo & Juliet.
