Elton John reveals emotional moment when his name change “caught up with me”
Elton John has opened up about a negative aspect of changing his name, which he never expected to arrive upon initially adopting a stage persona.
The singer, who was born Reginald Dwight in 1947, changed from his birth name after becoming famous under his stage name and officially became Elton John in 1972. Speaking to Good Morning America in a new interview, John claimed that his name change was because “Reginald is a really old-fashioned name,” before specifying that “it’s shortened to Reggie, which I hated. I just didn’t like it, and as soon as I could, I changed my name.”
Despite now being legally known by the name he chose to adopt for his stage persona, he says that he realised the error of his ways shortly before he performed a legendary show at the Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles in 1975.
Expanding on how this troubled him, the singer revealed that he thought he was being clever by changing his name to something so unique. “No one’s really called Elton,” he claimed to have thought at the time, “so I’ll be Elton and I’ll be the only Elton.”
“I wanted to leave my childhood and that persona behind, and that caught up with me,” he told the talk show. “I realised I put everything into my work and my art, my recording, and there was nothing underneath there.”
Realising that he had essentially erased an important aspect of his past and his early childhood, John claimed that he felt like a “void,” saying “I left little Reggie behind, but little Reggie was still inside of me.”
John became legally known by his stage name shortly before the release of his fifth studio album, Honky Château, which featured his famous single ‘Rocket Man’.
The artist has previously stated that the inspirations behind his stage name came from saxophonist Elton Dean and vocalist Long John Baldry, two musicians that he previously played with in a band called Bluesology during the 1960s. His middle name, Hercules, was taken from the name of the horse in the UK sitcom Steptoe and Son, which John claims to have been a fan of.
A new documentary film about the singer, Elton John: Never Too Late, will be available to stream via Disney+ from December 13th.
What is the new Elton John documentary about?
Having premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, Elton John: Never Too Late was later given a limited release in cinemas in both the UK and US in November, and will join the streaming giant Disney+ later this week.
Directed by filmmakers RJ Cutler and David Furnish, the latter of whom is married to John, the documentary follows the singer on his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour that ran from 2018 to 2023 and marked the end of John’s touring commitments following his announcement that he would retire from touring.
The tour, which lasted for 330 performances around the world, is chronicled in the new film alongside unearthed archival footage from historic concerts that John had performed at. The documentary also gains access to previously unseen aspects of John’s personal life and private journals.
Alongside this, John reflects upon his whole career in the documentary, detailing how he rose to fame and overcame several personal troubles such as abuse and addiction.
The film concludes with John’s final US concert in 2022 when he returned to the iconic Dodger Stadium, where he had previously performed one of the biggest shows of his career in 1975. This is also the location where he realised the negative impact of changing his name.
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