Oh. My. God. If you are at all interested in Elton John as a person, or his views on anything and everything, you really, really need to go read his extensive profile/interview in The Telegraph. It’s amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever sat down and read a long interview with him, but he’s a really fascinating, wonderful man. This piece is so interesting! Elton talks about his borderline-OCD, his years of drug and alcohol abuse, what rehab, AA, and NA was like for him, plus he talks extensively about art, photography, his personal collections, interior design… it’s all like porn for me. I love this sh-t. Here are some highlights:

Elton on technology: At his home in Windsor Elton’s archive of 70,000 CDs is stored in a room beside the gym, the ‘newer stuff’ in the music room. (He sold his vinyl collection, including every 45 released in Britain since 1954 – acquired from a BBC producer – for £250,000 in 1992, when he set up his Elton John Aids Foundation.) He does not own an iPod, nor a computer – nor even what he calls ‘a portable phone’. He is the only person he knows, he says, who can remember telephone numbers. ‘Everybody else puts them into their phone. I feel like a grumpy old man, but I’ve made the choice not to join in with all that.’

Elton’s properties and interior design: Elton John has homes in Nice, Atlanta and Venice but his principal residence is in Windsor: a Queen Anne-style house with eight bedrooms, standing in 37 acres, that he bought in 1975 for £400,000. Through the 1970s and 80s this was furnished in a style that might be called ‘High Rock’n’Roll Empire’: the obligatory jukeboxes and pinball machines; Tiffany lamps and art deco nymphs; red leather sofas; the odd Rembrandt etching; a disco; a replica of Tutankhamun’s state throne – booty acquired in what he once described as his ‘looting expeditions’. When, in 1988, he decided to refurbish the house and sell everything, the Sotheby’s staff who were called upon to catalogue its contents for auction expressed astonishment that anyone could have found the room to actually live there. The catalogue ran to four volumes, and the four-day sale raised almost £15 million. Now, the man who once asked his friend the actor and director Bryan Forbes, ‘How do I acquire taste?’ seems finally to have found it. Through the electronic gates, a gravelled drive lined with white rose bushes leads you to the front door, where a manservant is waiting to greet you. In the sitting-room there are capacious sofas – an aura of Aubusson, cut moquette, damask – and deep carpets. There are vases spilling with flowers, elaborately carved tables, every surface covered with exquisite porcelain – one of his obsessions. Outside, fountains play in the garden.

On aging: Elton John is 63, but feels, he says, ‘like a 20-year-old’. The pacemaker that he had fitted a few years ago was replaced last year. ‘I’m like turbo-bunny.’

Quickies: He is an engagingly lively conversationalist, quick to make jokes, often at his own expense, only occasionally becoming heated at something that he finds particularly irksome: pop videos (‘I f***ing hate them’); D-list celebrities (‘I loathe celebrity. I can’t stand it’); and Fabio Capello (‘I cannot believe – and I hope you print this – that we employ a manager who still cannot speak English’).

Elton on how he’s just a bloke: Pondering his place in the nation’s affections, he likes to describe himself as ‘the acceptable face of homosexuality, because I’m quite blokey. And I’m very happy with that. That’s why I love being in this country, because people are always very honest with me and very kind and have a great sense of humour, and you still get the wolf whistles walking along the street and stuff like that.’

On AA and NA: Elton once estimated that in his first few years of sobriety, in the early 1990s, he attended a total of 1,500 meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, finally stopping when he realised that the meetings were threatening to become an addiction in themselves. He no longer has therapy or goes to meetings, although he remains close friends with his AA sponsor in Chicago – a former garbage-truck driver who now works as a counsellor – and is godfather to his son. Yet Elton, whose candour once prompted someone to remark that he was a man who threatened to invade his own privacy, still seems compelled to talk of his problems and his recovery – the touchstone that all conversation circles around and eventually returns to. ‘You have to be honest,’ he says. ‘And talking about it helps me, actually; it reminds me of what a mess I was.’

On drugs and bulimia: ‘I know people who can do a line of coke once a month,’ he says. ‘Well, I can’t.’ His consumption of the drug and of alcohol quickly assumed gargantuan proportions. There is a period in his life – quite a long period – which he now remembers only as ‘a complete and utter blur… The self-loathing I had…’ He sighs. ‘Walking around the house, not bathing for three or four days, staying up watching pornography all the time, drinking a bottle of scotch a day. And I was bulimic as well, so I wouldn’t eat for three days, then gorge on six bacon sandwiches and a pint of ice cream and throw it up. And then have a shower and start the whole procedure all over again. There was no self-respect there whatsoever. It was just f***ing horrible. You look back and think, how on earth could I have done that? But I did.’

On AIDS and Elton’s AIDS Fondation: Elton says that one of the most important turning points in his recovery was meeting Ryan White, a haemophiliac who in the late-1980s became a cause célèbre in America after becoming infected at the age of 13 with HIV from a contaminated blood transfusion. Ryan’s family were obliged to wage a lengthy legal battle in the face of a campaign by teachers and parents to ban him from school. His ordeal made Ryan, who died in 1990 at the age of 18, a figurehead for Aids education and research. Elton became a close friend and supporter of Ryan and his family. He spent the last week of Ryan’s life at the family home, ‘making the coffee and fielding telephone calls’, and he was a pall-bearer at his funeral. ‘And what I learnt from them in that one week was that my life was so out of kilter,’ he says. ‘These people gave me an incredible example of how to lead one’s life as a Christian – forgiving, wonderful, not bitter; handling tragedy with such dignity, humility and generosity of spirit. And here I was complaining about the wallpaper in a hotel suite. What? What an absolute c*** you are. It made me think, you’ve got to make a change here, son.’ Ryan White’s death became the catalyst for the Elton John Aids Foundation, which has raised more than £150 million since it was set up in 1992, and for Elton’s increasingly active role as a spokesman on gay issues.

On performing at Rush Limbaugh’s wedding: Earlier this year he caused outcry among the gay community when he performed, for a reported fee of $1 million, at the wedding of the splenetic right-wing American commentator Rush Limbaugh, a man who has been accused of being a homophobe, and who has described Aids as a ‘hyped’ disease and claimed ‘there was never any evidence’ that it could be transmitted heterosexually. ‘When he asked me to play at his wedding, my agent said, “Well, of course you won’t be doing it,” ’ Elton says. ‘But I said, “Well, let me think about that first.”’ Limbaugh, he says, is against gay marriage – ‘But then so is President Obama. But Limbaugh’s not anti-civil partnerships, so maybe I can have a dialogue about that. I’ve put my foot in the water and so has he. I got on with him very well, got on very well with his wife. I don’t have the same politics, but that doesn’t really matter. And I think this year I can start to put things in motion by trying to get him on my side.’

On Eminem: The tide can change, he says. He faced similar criticism in 2001 when he joined Eminem on stage at the Grammy awards, ignoring the controversy about the rap singer’s allegedly homophobic lyrics. Eminem has now come out in support of gay marriage. ‘For our civil partnership present he gave David and me two diamond-encrusted c-ck-rings.’

[From The Telegraph]

Wait… Elton John doesn’t believe in gay marriage? And neither does Pres. Obama? And yet Eminem is pro-gay marriage?! You’ve got to love that. I also like that Elton doesn’t discuss his part in helping Eminem get sober and clean – because Eminem has already spoken about that, and how much Elton’s help and advice has meant to him. For Elton to talk about it, it might sound cheap, I think.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Shocking absolutely no one, conservative radio host/icon Rush Limbaugh married for the fourth time over the weekend. Actually, I was slightly surprised, only because I thought he was already on wife number five or six. Also shocking: Rush did not marry a bottle of Oxycontin. Low blow? Eh. Anyway, the real surprise was who performed at Rush’s wedding: Elton John! Are you kidding me, Elton? According to People Magazine and other sources, Sir Elton performed for Rush’s 400 guests after Rush paid him a cool million. But… but… Elton is gay! And married TO A DUDE.

Talk about an odd couple: conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh and outspoken gay-marriage advocate Elton John.

But, according to a News Corporation (which owns Fox News) wire report, the Rocket Man, 63, serenaded the 400 guests into the wee hours Saturday night to celebrate the marriage of Limbaugh, 59, to Kathryn Rogers, 33, in the Ponce de Leon ballroom of Florida’s fabled Breakers hotel in Palm Beach. Sir Elton’s fee: $1 million, the report notes.

Amid dozens of giant bouquets of white roses (and very tight security), reports the Palm Beach Post, guests at the wedding included former Bush adviser Karl Rove; actor-politician Fred Thompson; former Kansas City Royals slugger George Brett; Fox News commentator Sean Hannity; former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani; New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft; former Clinton adviser James Carville and his wife, GOP analyst Mary Matalin; and golfer Tom Watson. A wedding guest also tells PEOPLE that among the others was Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

The couple met six years ago, while she was running a charity golf tournament and Limbaugh was in the process of divorcing for the third time.

Sunday morning, a source tells PEOPLE, the newlyweds hopped Limbaugh’s private Gulfstream jet for a honeymoon in Mexico, Africa and a couple other spots.

Rogers is a direct descendant of President John Adams, and her father attended the U.S. Naval Academy with the future Arizona Senator (and 2008 Republican Presidential candidate) John McCain, reports NewsCore.

The wire service also quotes the new bride as saying of the couple’s 26-year age gap: “I’m sometimes not able to relate to the average person my age.”

[From People]

Of course there’s a lot to say and a lot of places to go with this, but I’m just going to focus on Elton John. I don’t understand…? I realize a paying gig is a paying gig, but is Elton not familiar with Rush Limbaugh’s politics, what Rush has said over the years about the GLBT community? And what of Rush? Rush is down with Elton? Maybe they’re friends. Maybe they’re butt buddies. Too much?

Oh, God. Elton John is going to piss people off with this one. Perhaps that’s what he’s trying to do, though. Get a little controversy going, add on some publicity for… whatever he’s promoting? I think he’s just promoting his foundation, honestly. Anyway, this is Elton’s new interview in Parade Magazine, and it’s pretty interesting. Even though I think Elton is probably one of the biggest bitches out there, I have so admiration for him, and I love his music to this day. Elton talks about love and loss, HIV/AIDS, drugs, and in the sound byte that will launch a million anti-Elton campaigns, he says “I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems. On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don’t know what makes people so cruel. Try being a gay woman in the Middle East — you’re as good as dead.” Oh, Jesus!

Making early mistakes in love.
“I’d always choose someone younger. I wanted to smother them with love. I’d take them around the world, try to educate them. One after another they got a Cartier watch, a Versace outfit, maybe a sports car. They didn’t have jobs. They were reliant on me. I did this repeatedly. In six months they were bored and hated my guts because I’d taken their lives and self-worth away. I hadn’t intended to.”

Love and drugs.
“Just about every relationship I ever had was involved with drugs. It never works. But I always had to be with someone, good or bad, otherwise I didn’t feel fulfilled. I’d lost the plot.”

It’s all or nothing when it comes to drugs.
“For some people a gram of cocaine can last a month. Not me. I have to do the lot, and then I want more. At the end of the day, all it led to was heartache.”

Why fame has lost its appeal.
“Princess Diana, Gianni Versace, John Lennon, Michael Jackson, all dead. Two of them shot outside their houses. None of this would have happened if they hadn’t been famous. Fame attracts lunatics. I never had a bodyguard, ever, until Gianni died. I don’t like celebrity anymore.”

Remembering friends lost.
“Every time I sing ‘The Ballad of the Boy in the Red Shoes’ onstage, I say that this is a song written about a time when people in America started getting AIDS and your president, Ronald Reagan, did nothing about it. I get boos. There’s a lot of hate in the world.”

His take on Christianity.
“I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems. On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don’t know what makes people so cruel. Try being a gay woman in the Middle East — you’re as good as dead.”

He’ll never stop helping.
“I set up my foundation because I wanted to make amends for the years I was a drug addict. People with HIV are still stigmatized. The infection rates are going up. People are dying. The political response is appalling. The sadness of it, the waste.”

Finding new relationships.
“In 1993 I went back to my house in Windsor for a while. I wanted meet new people so I rang up a friend in London and said, ‘Could you please rattle some new people together for dinner here Saturday?’”

An instant connection.
“I was attracted to David immediately. He was very well dressed, very shy. The next night we had dinner. After it, we consummated our relationship. We fell in love very quickly.”

Keeping the love alive.
“Every Saturday for 16 years, we’ve sent each other a card, no matter where we are in the world, to say how much we love each other.”

Communication is key.
“We’ve never been jealous. We talk about the sexual side of things, things that normally would have frightened me before.”

[From Parade]

See, I know what Elton is trying to say, kind of. He’s trying to talk about what he’s learned from the New Testament and the teachings of Christ. And maybe what he’s learned has led him to the belief that he’s a lot like Jesus, or vice versa? Maybe. Is Elton saying that Jesus is gay, and this, gay people are closer to Jesus? F-ck, I really have no idea. I’m just hoping this doesn’t become a huge thing.

Parade cover courtesy of Just Jared.

Several weeks ago, Eminem’s interview with Complex Magazine was published, and it caused a minor tabloid ripple. Eminem compared his years-long prescription drug addiction to Michael Jackson’s addictions, and spoke frankly about how he used to take more than 20 pills a day (Valium, Ambien and Vicodin), and how he felt “plastic”. But, Eminem also claimed that he’d been clean for 18 months, and that that at first, his drug addiction transformed itself into an exercise addiction, which Eminem admitted he had to keep in check. All in all, it was a series of startling admissions, and many applauded Eminem for his honesty.

In another interview, Eminen admitted that when he began to realize he had a problem, he contacted Elton John. Eminem said: “He had a substance-abuse problem in the past. So when I first wanted to get sober, I called him, because he’s somebody in the business who can relate to the lifestyle and how hectic things can be. He understands the pressure and any other reasons that you wanna come up with for doing drugs.” Now Elton John is coming forward with a new admission about Eminem’s drug problems – it seems Elton has been “helping” Eminem for months, and that Elton feels that Eminem is doing “brilliantly”.

Elton John says he’s been helping Eminem kick drugs.

“I’ve been helping Eminem over the last 18 months and he’s doing brilliantly,” John told BBC radio.

John didn’t discuss any details, but in 2005 Eminem entered rehab for addiction to sleeping pills and then took a three-year hiatus.

“It’s no secret I had a drug problem,” he later told Vibe magazine. “If I was to give you a number of Vicodin I would actually take in a day? Anywhere between 10 to 20. Valium, Ambien, the numbers got so high I don’t even know what I was taking.”

He also nearly overdosed on methadone, a heroin substitute.

Elton John also battled drugs and booze throughout his career but says he has been sober since the ’80s.

The “Rocket Man” singer has counseled other celebrity addicts, including the late Michael Jackson, but says he doesn’t force his advice on anyone.

“I’m there if people want my help,” he said in the BBC interview that aired yesterday. “If people ask for help you tell them where to go but there’s no point advising people if they don’t want to do it.”

[From The New York Daily News]

Part of me thinks this story is rather sweet. Eminem got a lot of criticism for his perceived (or actual) homophobia, but he dealt with the criticism in an interesting way – by performing and publicly embracing Elton John at the 2001 Grammys. While it was a smart PR move at the time, it’s interesting to think that Elton and Eminem might have a genuine friendship that has lasted all these years. I find that part of it touching. The other part me is reminded of what George Michael said about Elton John’s efforts to get him sober (“He will not be happy until I bang on his door in the middle of the night saying, ‘Please, please, help me, Elton. Take me to rehab.’ It’s not going to happen.”), and I chuckle.

In September, Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, visited an HIV-positive orphanage in the Ukraine to raise awareness for his Aids foundation. While there, Elton met a little HIV-positive 14 month-old boy and told the press that he’d love to adopt him. Elton said “Having seen Lev today, I would love to adopt him. I don’t know how we do that but he has stolen my heart. And he has stolen David’s heart and it would be wonderful if we can have a home.” The Ukrainian government quickly shot Elton down, and issued a statement saying that Elton wasn’t eligible to adopt from the country because he was single under their definition and, at 62, was too old. Under Ukrainian law, foreign adoptive parents must be married to an opposite sex partner, and must be no more than 45 years older than the children they plan to adopt.

Elton and David might not be able to take little Lev home with them, but they plan to make sure he and his brother are supported throughout their lifetimes. In an interview with BBC radio, Furnish said that he and John were devastated that they weren’t able to adopt the boy but that they would provide financial support to ensure that he was well cared for:

Elton John’s partner says the musician was devastated that he wasn’t allowed to adopt an HIV-positive Ukrainian toddler, but plans to support the boy anyway.

The 62-year-old pop star met 14-month-old Lev at a home for HIV-positive children in September. But he was refused permission to adopt the boy because he was too old and not married.

John’s partner David Furnish said Tuesday the couple was “massively gutted” by the rejection.

Furnish told BBC radio they were working to ensure Lev and his brother “have the best health care, education and family options available to them.”

John and Furnish tied the knot in 2005 in a civil union in Britain. Ukrainian authorities do not recognize gay unions as marriage.

Furnish said the couple would campaign for a change in Ukrainian law.

[From AP via Huffington Post]

As Kaiser mentioned in her story about this in September, I understand the age restrictions on adoption and why that’s necessary. It seems unfair to both adoptive parents and orphans that gay unions aren’t recognized under Ukranian adoption law, though. Good for Elton and David for remembering this little boy and making sure he’ll be provided for even though they won’t be able to care for him. It really tugs your heartstrings to hear stories like this.

Photos are from 9/14/09. Credit: BARM/Fame Pictures

I’ve always appreciated Elton John’s perspective on children. He’s given interview after interview over the years describing, with a lot of honesty, his lack of desire to become a father. He always said it was because of the schedule he kept with touring and all, and that he loved and adored being a godfather to some crazy amount of godchildren (the count’s at a dozen, I think, including Liz Hurley‘s son Damien and at least one of the Beckham boys). Elton had already claimed that when he dies, his money will go to charity and to his godchildren. Elton has also always been honest about his advancing years. Elton is 62 years old – so it seems strange that this is the point in his life when he would begin to seriously consider becoming a father. But it looks like Elton is reconsidering, all because a 14-month-old Ukrainian orphan “stole his heart”:

Sir Elton John said he wants to adopt a 14-month-old boy from an orphanage in Ukraine who has ‘stolen his heart’.

The 62-year-old singer was introduced to the toddler while visiting the country with his Aids foundation.

During the trip the musician performed ‘Circle of Life’ for the children, some of whom were there because their parents had died of the disease.

At a press conference later, he and partner David Furnish, 46, were asked whether they had thought of adopting.

Sir Elton said: ‘David and I have always talked about adoption, David always wanted to adopt a child and I always said ‘no’ because I am 62 and I think because of the traveling I do and the life I have, maybe it wouldn’t be fair for the child.’

‘But having seen Lev today, I would love to adopt him. I don’t know how we do that but he has stolen my heart. And he has stolen David’s heart and it would be wonderful if we can have a home. I’ve changed my mind today.’

The singer added that the death of his long-term keyboardist, Guy Babylon, had also helped change his mind.

‘Last week I lost one of my best friends, my keyboard player died of a heart attack at 52. It broke my heart because he was such a genius and so young and has two wonderful children. What better opportunity to replace someone I lost than to replace him with someone I can give a future to.’

‘I don’t know what the procedure is to adopt a boy from the Ukraine. I don’t think that I can because England has a treaty with the Ukraine but David is Canadian so we might be able to work through something like that.’

Sir Elton has been in a relationship with Furnish, a former advertising executive and now film maker, since 1993. They entered into a civil partnership in December 2005.

Ukraine has the fastest rising HIV rates in Europe. Two years ago Sir Elton gave a free concert on the main square in Kiev attended by tens of thousands people to raise awareness of HIV and Aids.

The singer has been heavily involved in the fight against Aids since the late 1980s, and was knighted in 1998. The Elton John Aids Foundation collaborates with the Ukrainian Anti-Aids Foundation of Olena Franchuk, daughter of former President Leonid Kuchma.

[From the Daily Mail]

A lot of sources seem to be running this story like “Elton John plans to adopt right now” but I don’t think that’s what he’s saying. Elton sounds more like he’s thinking aloud, trying to figure out if there’s a way for him to adopt the child, and whether or not it would be a good idea. Radar has pictures of the little boy, and you can see why the kid stole Elton’s heart – the baby looks like a sweetheart. Personally, I think Elton is too old to adopt in general, but I can understand why he’s at a point in his life where he thinks he could now be a father. If the adoption happens, God bless. I’m sure Elton and David Furnish would make great dads.

Update: Here are photos of Elton John and David Furnish at a “news conference at a orphanage for HIV positive children in the town of Makeyevka, Ukraine on September 12, 2009. The 62 year old singer has announced that he and his partner David Furnish want to give a home to a 14 month old boy from the Ukrainian HIV orphanage. Sir Elton said the blond-haired child, called Lev, had ‘stolen his heart’. He said: ‘I would love to adopt him.’” [Quote from photo source: Fame Pictures]

Update #2: Ukraine’s minister for family affairs released a statement saying that there would be no way for Elton and David to adopt this child, or any child from Ukraine. The minister says, “Foreign citizens who are single have no right to adopt children … and the age difference between the adopter and the child cannot be more than 45 years… The law is the same for everybody: for a president, for a minister, for Elton John.” Elton and David are married – in England. Their union is not recognized by the Ukrainian government, so that’s why both of them would be considered “single”. As for the age thing – well, yeah. That’s a bigger deal (in my mind) than any question about their single status.

Elton John and David Furnish are shown in St. Tropez on 8/6/09 and 8/13/09. Credit: WENN.com

Ultra-conservatives can stop worrying. Elton John and his civil partner David Furnish are not going to adopt. The pair have 10 godchildren, from such celebrities as Elizabeth Hurley and Victoria Beckham. And though Elton is playing his final Vegas show tonight, their lives are still “too busy” to settle down with a larger family. They have been in a British civil union since 2005, and have been dating for 12 years, and David says that one reason they decided to have their union legally recognized was for “human rights.”

Sir Elton John may be set to play his 250th and final performance of his show, The Red Piano, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas Wednesday night, but that doesn’t mean he and partner David Furnish will suddenly settle down to build a family.

“I don’t think our lives are suited to raising children,” Furnish, 46, told PEOPLE at last weekend’s GLAAD Media Awards in Los Angeles. “We’re busy flying places all the time.”

Said Furnish, “Elton is not really going to come off the road. We don’t want to put the raising of children into the hands of nannies and housekeepers. We want to be active parents. We have godchildren [and] kids that we support in Africa, so we’re fine.”

Furnish, 46, and John, 62, have 10 godchildren, including the offspring of pals Victoria Beckham and Elizabeth Hurley.

After dating for 12 years, the two were joined in a civil partnership in December 2005, under a then-new British law for same-sex couples. So while Furnish and John are not married, they enjoy similar benefits to married couples.

Reflecting on their time together, Furnish says, “When all the dust settled, we looked at each other and said, ‘Wow, this feels really nice.’ We did it in Britain in a civil partnership, initially for human rights reasons. We recognized it as ground-breaking legislation we wanted to send a message out to the world that we felt it was something that deserved recognition and support.”

But civil partnership is more than a political statement, says Furnish: “Your love and union has been ratified and accepted by society, and that’s a really nice feeling.”

[From People]

Elton and David have a very realistic perspective on their relationship. Elton recognizes that one of the reasons people had a problem with Prop 8 was the fact that the word “marriage” was included. Elton says that gays shouldn’t get married; they should get civil unions. Heterosexuals, he continues, can keep the word “marriage” for their own. However, civil unions generally don’t give exactly the same rights afforded to heterosexual partners in marriage.

Another reason they may have decided not to adopt is that Elton is 62 and David is 46, which means that their child would have very old fathers. In 2001, Elton told the tabloid Aftonbladet that he had “come to the conclusion that it is too late for me. Had it been 20 years ago, then I would definitely have done it. I don’t want to be 70 years old when my daughter turns 16.”

Elton and David are very realistic about their relationship and its implications – a viewpoint for which you have to give them kudos.

Here’s Sir Elton and David Furnish leaving the Mayfair Hotel in London on December 15th. Images thanks to WENN.com .

Hollywood has gone crazy with re-makes, and when it comes to Jane Austen I think we might have hit breaking point with the whole remake concept – Pride and Prejudice has been remade by television, film, Bollywood and with zombies. And that’s just in the last decade. Now Elton John is bringing in the aliens.

By now, you’ve probably heard that “Pride and Prejudice” heroine Elizabeth Bennet will be fighting off a zombie invasion in Seth Grahame-Smith’s upcoming novel, “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.” Hollywood studios are already reportedly already fighting for the rights to the book, but amazingly, “Zombies” will be beaten by another Jane Austen sci-fi adaptation — “Pride and Predator.”

According to Variety, Elton John’s Rocket Pictures is bringing the project to the big screen, directed by Will Clark, who cowrote the script with Andrew Kemble and John Pape. The story will apparently follow the original novel — until an alien crash lands in the village of Meryton and begins to murder the inhabitants.

Now all those marriage-minded men and women have bigger problems to worry about. “It felt like a fresh and funny way to blow apart the done-to-death Jane Austen genre by literally dropping this alien into the middle of a costume drama, where he stalks and slashes to horrific effect,” producer David Furnish said. Shooting begins in London later this year.

MTV

David Furnish is Elton’s long term partner.

I had Jane Austen rammed down my throat in high school and I have a tolerance for it. I got to watch the good television version, later immortalized in the Bridget Jones’ Diary books, where Colin Firth takes his shirt off. I’ll probably skip this newest version, but I can’t say I hate the idea. All those women sitting around mooning about marriage and social standing seems very out of touch with modern times, and I can’t think of a more realistic, modern dilemma than an alien slasher?

This is a risky venture – some polls have put Pride and Prejudice as the second most loved book (behind The Lord of the Rings trilogy) and Jane Austen still lives on in the hearts of many. While I find her a little wordy and dull, I know why people love it. It’s such a nice idea, a more real to life, adult version of the princess story, that a man is going to come and love us and take care of us and that’s it. The whole story. Except he comes with a bit of land and possibly a minor title rather than on a white horse. The only thing you have to worry about is dying of consumption before you’re thirty. Will aliens breathe new life into this concept?

David Furnish and Elton John are shown at the London premiere of Australia on 12/10/08. Credit: PRPhotos

Elton John has made an argument that sounds like it’s about semantics but is more about basic rights. The 61 year-old pop star has been in a civil partnership with his same sex partner, David Furnish, since 2005. They threw a huge reception for the event with many celebrity guests at an estimated cost of £ 1 million.

Elton says a civil union is all that same sex couples need and that they should confuse the issue by asking for full marriage rights like opposite sex couples:

Elton John says the reason Prop. 8 in California passed, banning gay marriages, is because of one word — marriage.

“I don’t want to be married,” he told USA TODAY’s Donna Freydkin at a New York fundraiser last night. “I’m very happy with a civil partnership. If gay people want to get married, or get together, they should have a civil partnership,” said John. “The word marriage, I think, puts a lot of people off. You get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships.”

Of his partner David Furnish, he says, “We’re not married. Let’s get that right. We have a civil partnership. What is wrong with Proposition 8 is that they went for marriage. Marriage is going to put a lot of people off, the word marriage.”

[From Blogs.usatoday.com via Showhype]

Marriage may just be a word, but it also involves a whole set of rights and allowances not afforded in a civil union in the US, particularly recognition by the federal government. Activists say that civil unions are a kind of “separate but unequal” partnership for same sex couples and that they still face countless legal and monetary issues that don’t affect married couples. Elton John doesn’t care about any of that stuff, though, he’s richer than some countries and doesn’t have to worry if his partner will get insurance money or his government pension if he dies or becomes disabled. He thinks that all the other gay couples be satisfied with a tenuous legal status too. Maybe he’s secretly worried that his assets won’t be protected if he ends up getting married.

Elton John and David Furnish are shown on 11/11/08 at a benefit for his Aids foundation at Cipriani Wall Street in NY. Credit: WENN

Sharon Stone has appeared at Elton John’s Oscar Party wearing a lucky rat’s foot. No, that is not a typo – she wore a rat’s foot, not the traditional lucky rabbit’s foot.

PETA, who have never been a fan of the fur wearing actress, have launched an attack on the jewelery. I can’t blame them – the badge is just so ugly.

In a scathing attack on Stone for her fashion attire, PETA campaigners said: “Maybe Sharon, passed over by the Academy yet again, was jealous of ‘Ratatouille”s Oscar win and thought a rodent paw might go with her haggard look.”

“Her accessories these days are as dead as her career.”

San Francisco Chronicle

Now, Sharon is said to be wearing the foot as it is an item that Scotsmen wear on their wedding day. I’ve never heard of this tradition, or been to a Scottish wedding, so I’m not sure if it’s meant to be lucky for the groom. I’m not sure how it is lucky, unless it’s because we’ve just had Chinese New Year and it’s the year of the rat. I guess we can safely assume that the brooch wasn’t so lucky for the rat that is now missing a paw.

At least this zebra print outfit was fake, although I think that’s the nicest thing that can be said about it. When did Sharon Stone lose her sense of style?

At the same event, Sharon donated a vintage Corvette racing car for the auction raising money for Elton John’s AIDS foundation. A guest started the bidding at $1 million, only he didn’t have the money. It seems his was just a dummy bid, and he was planning to drop out when someone bid more. Unfortunately even the most shiny of vintage cars is unlikely to net $1 million, and the bidder had to explain he didn’t actually want the car. Whoops.