Elton John has revealed at a gala performance of his new musical The Devil Wears Prada, for which he wrote the lyrics, that he is physically unable to see the show, due to ongoing problems with his eyesight.
Speaking on stage the 77-year-old singer told the audience: “As some of you may know I have had issues and now I have lost my sight. I haven’t been able to see the performance but I have enjoyed it.”
On stage, John thanked his husband David Furnish, “who’s been my rock”.
“I haven’t been able to come to many of the previews … it’s hard for me to see it but I love to hear it and it sounded good tonight,” he added.
In September, John revealed that a severe eye infection he contracted in July while on holiday in France had left him blind in his right eye and with “only limited vision” in his left.
“I am healing, but it’s an extremely slow process and it will take some time before sight returns to the impacted eye,” he wrote in a statement shared on social media. “I am so grateful for the excellent team of doctors and nurses and my family, who have taken such good care of me over the last several weeks.”
Last week, John told Good Morning America that his eyesight was delaying his next album with his long-time collaborator Bernie Taupin.
“I unfortunately lost my eyesight in my right eye in July because I had an infection in the south of France and it’s been four months now since I haven’t been able to see, and my left eye is not the greatest,” he said. “So, there’s hope and encouragement that it will be OK, but… I’m kind of stuck at the moment, because I can do something like this [the interview], but going into the studio and recording, I don’t know, because I can’t see a lyric for a start.”
The Devil Wears Prada has just opened in London’s West End at the Dominion Theatre. The Sunday night gala performance was staged to raise funds for the Elton John Aids Foundation.
The Devil Wears Prada, which was initially a novel by author Lauren Weisberger and later adapted for film, tells the story of Andy, an aspirational journalist who become the assistant to a notoriously difficult fashion magazine editor, Miranda Priestly. In the musical, Priestly is played by US model and actor Vanessa Williams.
The starry event was attended by many famous faces from the fashion world, including Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, who it has long been rumoured to have loosely inspired the character of Priestly.
Speaking to the BBC on the red carpet, Wintour said: “It’s for the audience and for the people I work with to decide if there are any similarities between me and Miranda Priestly.”