Elton John: ‘I Wasted Such A Big Part Of My Life’
World-famous icon Elton John may have what seems like a perfect life--he's happily settled down with husband David Furnish, and the couple are the parents of young son Zachary, who turns 2 this Christmas. However, the singer admits that although things are great now, he feels guilty about the years he virtually lost to drug and alcohol addiction.
"I wasted such a big part of my life," John admits in an exclusive interview with Today's Matt Lauer. "I was a drug addict and self-absorbed."
He noted that he hit the peak of his addiction during the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the early '80s. "I was having people die right, left and center around me; friends," he told Lauer. "And yet, I didn't stop the life that I had, which is the terrible thing about addiction."
John also admits that he had no fear of contracting AIDS during that time. "When you take a drug and you take a drink and you mix those two together, you think you're invincible," he explained. "I came out of this HIV-negative. I was the luckiest man in the world."
John's candid confessions are further explored in his new memoir, Love Is The Cure: On Life Loss and the End of AIDS. Sales of the book will benefit the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
"I'm making up for [that period in my life]," John told Lauer. "There is so much more to be done."
The Rock And Roll Hall of Fame member, who is 65 years old and now living a sober lifestyle, has his mind on the future as well as his past--he says he'd like to have more children. "I want [Zachary] to have a brother or a sister to go to school with him. And so that he can have someone to play with."
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