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Admittedly, I’m not the ideal reader for this book. I like a few songs of Elton John’s, have childhood memories of him in the 70s as an outrageous performer dressed in garish clothes & accessories who played surprisingly mellow piano tunes for all that. That’s was pretty much the only impression he’d left me with since.

His fame grew & grew; tabloid stories about is he or is he not bisexual, or is he gay; notorious drug & alcohol abuse; close friendships with Gianni Versace and Lady Di, both ending tragically. Even I tuned in for her funerals & his performance of a rewritten “Candle In The Wind�� in her honour, at which I shed a tear. I was a twelve year old still starry-eyed girl when her royal wedding was celebrated with all that pompous circumstance, and her horrific death was shocking to everyone.

I cannot decide whether the title of this autobiography, “Me�� is an exercise in humility or complete narcissism. I suspect he couldn’t either, so left it for the rest of the world to figure out. In his one and only autobiography, Elton John gives a linear narrative of his life, from growing up as Reginald Kenneth Dwight, a boy obsessed with music raised by parents who were ill-suited for each other and constantly fighting, a father with whom the only common ground was football which became a lifelong passion for the singer. He describes being naive and unsophisticated as a young man, who had no sexual curiosity or drive, until he suddenly found his libido at 21.

Finding his footing as a performer, he eventually changed his name, became a flamboyant artist and dresser, and a wildly promiscuous coke & booze fiend. He spells out that he had no wish to gloss over any of those “ugly�� bits in telling of his life story, partly because he eventually found himself at a self-described revolting low which he knew he had to recover from, or die. That, and also because he was aiming for authenticity in his life as man now more than 30 years free of substance abuse.

Having found sobriety after incredible excesses which he talks about without glossing over embarrassing details �� in a way I recognize, because so freeing in their revelation, as someone who doesn't hide from my mistakes and great failings either��, he’s been dedicated to helping many others in need of rehabilitation. Well known figures, a few he named (Eminem stuck in my mind) and people whose privacy he is safeguarding. One of his most laudable contributions has been to his AIDS foundation, which he started after the death of some of his closest friends. Notably Freddy Mercury, who could have been saved in the year following his passing with life extending drug treatments.

Much of the book is dedicated to his musical career, his relationships with songwriters and musicians, his album recordings and singles, his countless years on the road touring the world, details about meeting and working with other superstars. He discusses his “five big loves�� (according to this article ) including Linda Woodrow, the woman he was engaged to marry, but especially David Furnish, his longtime partner whom he married in 2014. Then, fatherhood coming in his 60s and how a gay couple managed to achieve such a thing (hint: lots of money, surrogacy), waxes lyrical about the transformative powers of parenthood, etc.

Ok. Fine. Here’s the thing: I don’t care about famous people. I’m curious about their lives because they get to mix with all sorts of people and have influenced pop culture and mark eras and are part of the zeitgeist and so on. On the whole, they’re rarely people I would want to spend any time with, given the opportunity. The massive egos, the insecurity stoking those egos, and the narcissism needed to achieve that level of fame tend to make for unpleasant & often abusive individuals. Not always. However, Elton John doesn't seem to be an exception. By and large, megastars tend to be narcissistic users (redundant but making a point). He speaks about this aspect of himself too. Elton John has done a lot of therapy to overcome his addictions and rein in his mercurial temperament, but self-awareness doesn’t change anything much when a strong temper refuses to be tamed.

I’m put off by his superficiality which he expresses with a garish facade I find unpleasant and vulgar. His obsession with Versace’s bold, in your face regalia, the kinds of clothes only worn by a certain of people who expects to be the centre of attention at all times, is excessively annoying to me. Case in point: Versace is quoted as saying "I don't believe in good taste,". It was said "Armani dresses the wife, Versace dresses the mistress." As it happens, the only designer piece I own is an Armani dress, because I love beautiful & elegant design and abhor bad taste and men who take on mistresses dolled up like expensive whores (we’re supposed to call them “sex workers in 2021 because “sex work is valid & empowering��).

Towards the end, he describes how fulfilling he finds his role as a parent, but you somehow don’t hear much about the children. There was a boy in an orphanage who initially sparked that burning desire to becomes father. But what I gleaned was that his primary goal was fulfilling HIS need when the urge for family struck him as a sexagenarian. True enough, his partner had wanted children too and all parents follow their own needs & biological imperative for having children, but it seemed all of a piece with a pattern of egoism which I doesn’t translate into actual love. That is my subjective perception as the daughter of a narcissistic parent who put her needs above mine & told me she wanted a baby and an ally all in one.

Finally, what tilted the balance to a negative rating and overall impression was a not an inconsequential detail. Not all famous people choose to read the audiobook edition of their autobiographies. We are led to believe these are their own words, when most turn to professional authors who don’t receive credit & remain in the shadows. Narrating the opening and closing chapters exclusively while leaving the rest to a professional narrator wouldn't be unusual. But this book is titled Me , and in it, there are a lot of words and sentences and paragraphs and whole chapters to convince us/himself that since his sobriety, he became a much simpler, humbler version of Elton John, the Superstar. He wants to convince us fatherhood has made him a simpler man who enjoys being a parent able to go to a Pizza Express with his kids and be treated like an ordinary person; to talk with moms at school events about things having nothing to do with his music, such as school uniforms. All that just made me shake my head and say, Okay, sure thing Reggie, gotcha.

Originally gave this three stars because it was full of interesting tidbits, but I think I’ll downgrade to 2.5 �� “Good in parts but...�� Ultimately, I can’t stand the guy. The very least he could’ve done is narrated his own fuxking book.