Though Elton John modified his beginning identify, he truly thinks that it’s fairly becoming.
The enduring singer-songwriter shared Tuesday on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” that he was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight. Nonetheless, his mom initially needed to call him Raymond after her brother however settled on Reginald to appease her husband.
Whereas Colbert mentioned that John’s beginning identify is “also a lovely name,” the artist merely replied, “It’s a shit name.”
“I became Reginald, and I hated it,” the five-time Grammy winner added earlier than mimicking his late mom screaming his beginning identify.
“It’s a more popular name in America, and they’ve had very many famous Reggies, but in England it wasn’t Reggie — it was Reginald,” John mentioned.
After John shared that he legally modified his identify to Elton Hercules John as quickly as he may, Colbert famous that Reginald is the male equal of Regina, “which means queen.” John, brazenly homosexual, replied with a wonderfully timed quip: “Thank you.”
“They got it spot on,” the musician joked, referring to his mother and father. “In 1947, they knew what they were doing.”
John then shared the origins of his chosen identify, explaining that he took “Elton” from Elton Dean, a member of the British band Bluesology that John was additionally part of.
Greg Allen/Invision/Related Press
As for the remainder of the identify, he took “John” from one other Bluesology member, John William “Long John” Baldry, and selected “Hercules” from the horse on the British Nineteen Sixties sitcom “Steptoe and Son.” The beloved artist famous that the identify change spurred poignant retrospection as soon as he discovered fame.
“The sad thing about it was, by 1975, when I was Elton Hercules John, there was still a lot of Reg in me, and Reg had been lost, and I craved to find that little boy that I used to be,” he instructed Colbert. “I had become ‘Elton John — superstar,’ and I paid the price for being so famous and not having that foundation.”
“Fame is a very weird thing,” the 77-year-old continued. “I enjoyed every single minute of it until I realized that the only thing in my life was fame. I didn’t like it, and I got very unhappy. My moods shifted, I started doing drugs, and I just thought, ‘Where am I? Who am I?’”
John, who has abstained from medication since 1990, mentioned this directionless disposition vanished as soon as he discovered sobriety, which allowed him to rediscover his youthful self, telling Colbert that “it was lovely to find that little boy again.”
Try the whole change from Tuesday’s interview beneath.
