Sir Elton John is opening up about how he can have quite the cold heart when he gets vexed.
In a new interview with Time magazine, the Tiny Dancer singer admitted that he’s aware of how bad his infamous temper can get at times.
But Sir Elton said that David Furnish, his “very rational” husband of more than 10 years, manages to keep him centred.
“David can tell you that my fuse is very short, and the worst thing about my temper is that David is very rational about things, and he’ll explain,” the Grammy winner told the publication in a story published on Wednesday.
“And I’ll get even madder about it.”
David, who met Sir Elton in 1993, said the musician was “very shut down in terms of accepting love” in the early stages of their connection.
“No one had ever asked him to do personal things like go for a walk together, those kind of joyful things,” he claimed.
The British music legend, who was named Time’s 2024 Icon of the Year, said that his temper has stabilised somewhat over the years, but every now and then it will “flare up.”
“I will flare up if I’m tired, if I’m exhausted, if I’m overwhelmed,” Sir Elton explained. “I don’t like having that temperament, but it’s all usually done and dusted within five or 10 minutes.”
David said he previously introduced Sir Elton’s fans to the singer’s irritable side after he directed the 1997 documentary Tantrums & Tiaras, which he said was cathartic for him.
“It was a bit like video therapy in a way,” the filmmaker said. “It gave me a chance to go in with a camera, like a shield, and kind of confront and shine a light on things in his life that I thought were odd.”
In 2021, Sir Elton said he was trying to get better at managing his temper, but confessed it was still a work in progress.
“I’ve been trying to work on that for a long time and I’ve got a wonderful husband who knows how to get me out of that stuff,” he told The Guardian at the time.
He added: “I think it’s an artistic thing — artists can be so self-destructive sometimes, for no reason. I can have a day when everything in my whole life is going so well, and I get up and I feel like the world is against me. Why, I do not know.”