Elton John warns of ‘growing wave of anger and homophobia’ in the US
British pop superstar Elton John lamented the “growing wave of anger and homophobia” in the United States, describing several laws recently passed in Florida that curtail LGBTQ rights as “disgraceful”.
“It’s all going pear-shaped in America,” John, a longtime leader for gay rights and visibility, said in an interview Tuesday radio timesin which he pointed to one increase in violent incidents and recent legislation restricting rights. “We seem to be going backwards. And it’s spreading. It’s like a virus that the LGBTQ+ movement is suffering from.”
More than 520 pieces of such legislation have been introduced in more than 40 states this year, a record according to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group.
“I don’t like it at all,” John said, referring to the increasingly hostile climate. “It’s a growing wave of anger and homophobia across America.”
John, 76, will cup GlastonburyBritain’s biggest music festival, on Sunday, while his lengthy final tour, Farewell Yellow Brick Road, heads to the final in Stockholm on July 8. The tour, which will have had more than 330 dates, started in 2018 but was interrupted by the pandemic as well as John’s hip surgery.
While preparing to perform at Glastonbury, the last UK date on the tour, John said he doesn’t know if rising anti-LGBTQ sentiment is as widespread in Britain. “I don’t know if it’s anywhere near Britain because I haven’t been here very often,” he said.
But he called the scandal surrounding prominent British news anchor Phillip Schofield – who recently resigned after admitting to being in a relationship with a younger man – “totally homophobic”.
“If it was a straight man having an affair with a young woman, it wouldn’t even make the papers,” John said.
In the interview with Radio Times, John said he would eventually be open to doing a residency after his farewell tour, “but not in America”. That, his representatives said, is for the same reason he had decided to stop touring: he wants to spend more time with his husband and children, who live in Britain.