Elton John is not holding back in his new memoir Me. Aside from recounting his own personal stories, the pop icon also told some shocking stories about other stars, like depicting Michael Jackson as "mentally ill" and "a disturbing person to be around" later in life, and calling out Madonna for being "ungracious and nasty" to Lady Gaga when she ignited a feud with the pop singer back in 2012 (the women eventually made amends after the Oscars this year).
“I used to make fun of [Madonna] for lip-syncing on stage, but the problem really started when she ran Gaga down on an American chat show,” he wrote (via Variety), in reference to a 2012 ABC News interview where Madonna claimed Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’ was “reductive,” and compared it to her 1989 hit, ‘Express Yourself’.
“I got that Gaga’s single ‘Born This Way’ definitely sounded similar to ‘Express Yourself,’ but I couldn’t see why she was so ungracious and nasty about it, rather than taking it as a compliment… particularly when she claims to be a champion for women,” he continued. “I think it’s just wrong — an established artist shouldn’t kick down a younger artist right at the start of their career.”
This sparked a feud between John and Madonna, when he called her a "fairground stripper" during an Australian TV interview.
“I was furious and I said some pretty horrible things about her to a TV interviewer in Australia, a guy I’d known since the seventies called Molly Meldrum,” he wrote. “You can tell from the footage that it wasn’t part of the interview, that I was just sounding off to an old friend between takes… They broadcast it anyway, which brought that particular old friendship to a very swift conclusion. Still, I shouldn’t have said it. I apologised.”
Last week John celebrated the release of his autobiography with an intimate iHeartRadio party. Relive the night here.
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