Rocket Fans! It's A Little Bit Funny...

Sir Elton John is in high spirits. He is 12 months into a three-year farewell tour that has sold out arenas and sports stadiums around the world, and earned some of the most rapturous reviews of his 50-year career.

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“The last time I had notices like this, I had a full head of hair and the writer had to spend half the review explaining who I was,” is how he puts it. His musical biopic Rocketman has grossed nearly $200 million at the box office and he’s about to publish his autobiography Me.

Full disclosure: I spent three and a half years working with Elton on the book. The first interviews took place on the set of Kingsman: The Golden Circle, in which he had a cameo role that involved wearing one of his old stage costumes from 1974. It’s an outfit entirely made up of multicoloured marabou feathers, a headdress covered in jewels and mirrored glass, and a pair of silver platform boots with “Elton” written on them in giant red letters.

“Of course I can walk in them,” he frowned, when I mentioned the latter. “Listen, I’ve jumped off pianos in bigger platforms than these. It’s like riding a bike – you never forget.”

But however mind-boggling he looked, it was nothing compared with what came out of his mouth: a succession of stories about his life in 1975 – when he was both the biggest pop star in the world and horribly depressed – so lurid that I assumed they’d never make it past the first draft. But they all ended up in the book.

No spoilers, but you’ll never look at a snooker table in the same way again.