72-year-old soul singer Elton John was near death after suffering a serious infection, has opened up about his health battle after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Elton John had a build up of fluid under his colon, which left him in excruciating pain and needing to wear a nappy on stage as he performed in Las Vegas in 2017. It was after his show in South America that he returned home to find that he was suffering from an infection and was placed in intensive care in hospital.
In a new interview, the singer explains how he was “24 hours” from dying and had to relearn how to walk as part of his recovery. He also joked that he was “like the Bionic Woman” as he has had his tonsils, colon and appendix removed.
The singer explained on the BBC One documentary Uncensored: “I went to South America and played in Santiago and I came home, and I got to London and I was very ill. And I was rushed into hospital on intensive care.
“I picked up an awful bug from somewhere. And I was about 24 hours from snuffing it. We didn’t tell people that was going on at the time, so I had an annus horribilis as they say for half the year.
“I literally had to learn how to walk again. I was extremely sick. All I could think about when I was lying in my hospital bed was ‘please don’t let me die, I want to see my children’, and luckily I survived it.
“Now I’m fine but there’s very few bits of me left. There’s no hair, there’s a pacemaker, there’s no tonsils, there’s no prostate, there’s no appendix, I’ve had kidney stones. I like the Bionic Woman.”
