Pop Culture

Elton John Reveals His Feud with Rod Stewart Started Over a “Lecture on the Feral Spirit of Rock and Roll”

Longtime frenemies Elton John and Rod Stewart have suddenly found themselves deeply at odds after a series of pointed quotes on both sides threaten to tear the septuagenarian rockstars apart. In fact, the fight currently so looms so large in John’s mind, he even added a new chapter to the paperback edition of his autobiography Me in order to address what kicked off the singers’ spat.

According to The Sun, in the new chapter, the singer claims things started to sour between the two in 2018 when Stewart said on Watch What Happens Live that John’s farewell tour was “dishonest” and “stinks of selling tickets.” He added that he would never announce his own retirement as it was not a very rock and roll move. To which Elton pointedly replied in his book, “I certainly didn’t feel like I needed a lecture on the feral spirit of rock and roll from someone who’d spent most of the last decade crooning his way through the Great American Songbook and ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.’”

He continued, “What’s more, I thought he had a fucking cheek, complaining about me promoting a tour while he was sat on a TV show promoting his own tour.” In response, Stewart told the publication, “She [Elton] doesn’t like me at the moment. I was bang out of order. Correct, but bang out of order.” He went on to blame the show’s producers explaining, “They make sure you get drunk before you go on. Four big shots of neat vodka and with me being a butch man, I knocked them all back.”

“I said that 300 dates in three years sounded a bit money-grabbing to me,” he concluded. “Look, I know where’s he’s coming from. He’s just got two kids very, very late in life but I’m planning my tours around my kids. I think he’ll miss it. I can’t wait for the next show.”

But John claims a few months after Stewart’s initial jab, he sent Stewart a message saying he loved him and they’ve “known each other far too long to fall out over something like that” only to never hear back. When Elton did finally get a message from Stewart’s manager he told him Rod couldn’t speak on the phone because he was on “constant vocal rest” between shows.

John points out that that vocal rest didn’t seem to stop the former Faces frontman from appearing on numerous talk shows, adding “I had no idea what I’d done to upset him so much. Which was ironic, given the hours I’d put in over the years deliberately trying to annoy him.” Prior to this particular falling out, the pair had a multi-decade friendly rivalry in which they constantly tried to take swipes at and one-up each other. Perhaps all these old friends need is an appearance on Verzuz to put this feud to bed once and for all.

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