Elton John’s Full Coming-Out Story Is Finally Revealed

Director R.J. Cutler is riding high.

After the rocky launch of his film about Martha Stewart—during which he sparred in the press with his subject for weeks, until Stewart finally came around to fully endorsing the film—the film has gone on to set all manner of streaming records for documentary. “There are tens of millions of people who have viewed this film, which is an incredible number for really any film, but certainly a documentary,” Cutler tells the Daily Beast.

Now, his film about Elton John, which has gotten rave reviews in early screenings, is set to launch on Disney+ this weekend. It’s an epic ride, which digs deep into the first remarkable five years of John’s career, while juxtaposing that roller-coaster ride against the final reflective months of John’s farewell tour.

While the documentary landscape is littered with missed opportunities, outright failures and, too often, toothless love letters to their subjects, Cutler’s films are none of the above. Astonishingly intimate, to the point that they can sometimes be almost difficult to watch, they give untold insight into their subjects, even for the most diehard of fans.

Not surprisingly, both Martha and Elton John: Never Too Late are already generating awards season buzz.

Cutler sat down with the Daily Beast for a lengthy chat about the bad—albeit sometimes justified —reputation of “authorized” documentaries, how he decided to approach the gargantuan task of telling the story of Elton John’s long, remarkable career, and what he thinks sets his documentaries apart from the current deluge of celebrity-centered films.

Authorized documentaries are hit and miss, and they’re a tricky thing, I think, for filmmakers. It’s rare to get any famous person, particularly a rock star, to speak about themselves openly and be so reflective as Elton John does in this film. But talk a little bit about how involved he was in the narrative, and editorial choices, along the way.

Well, [John’s husband] David Furnish came to me to ask if I wanted to co-direct a film with him. We had a kind of a creative sync the day we met. It was obvious that it was an organic fit. And, of course, I was intrigued by the opportunity, because of my great admiration for Elton. My big brother was the Woodstock and Beatles generation. I turned him on to Elton, so much so that—you won’t believe this—at the age of 13, I got him to take me to my very first concert: Elton John at Madison Square Garden, when John Lennon came out. My brother agreed to take me, kind of down his nose at the whole thing, because he was a music major. He grudgingly took his brother to this pop show, and John Lennon walked out. So, imagine what that meant, not just my burgeoning aesthetic and sense of spectacle and performance and theatricality and everything, but also my relationship with my big brother, who is eight years older than me.

And I’m sure he thanks you to this day.

To this day! In fact, he came to a screening, and Elton was there, and I shouted him out, so it’s full circle. But anyway, David came to me and said, “I’m thinking of doing a movie about the final months of Elton’s touring career. He’s made this huge decision, it’s a time in his life.” And I’d always thought of touring as the last great addiction of Elton’s life. And in a way, it was. And that’s why he talks about it in the film. But I said to David, “I think that’s great. But I also think there’s a resonant narrative in the first five years of Elton’s career, not only because of his extraordinary level of achievement. He made 13 albums in five years, seven of which went to #1. He redefined pop music, and answered the question, “Where does popular music go post-Beatles?” At a time when the Stones had stopped touring, Janis Joplin was dead, Jimi Hendrix was dead, and people were wondering if maybe rock and roll was over. But along came Elton John and it carried on.

But he was miserable. Deeply miserable. He’s a junkie, he’s lonely, he’s closeted. And at the end of that period, he makes the decision to come out. You know, it was 1976. He really did risk it all. But in risking it all, without the intention of changing the world, he changes the world. So, I pitched that to David—the final three months of Elton’s farewell tour will be the spine, but the first five years will be the nervous system. “What do you say, let’s go make a movie?” And he said yes. But to answer your question more directly, I met Elton, and I spent time with Elton, and I filmed with Elton, but Elton’s involvement was exactly that much. There was no more. He was only involved as a subject.

But I think what’s interesting is that there’s this incredible insight and yet it never feels overblown or self-conscious. It never feels sad. You get a real sense of this person and what he was going through without it veering into Behind the Music territory.

Of course. I don’t want to make too much of this, but there seems to be a tendency among our beloved friends who write about nonfiction and music and celebrity, to clump all of this stuff together. Why on Earth are we talking about Behind the Music? With respect. Why aren’t we talking about Don’t Look Back? You think Bob Dylan didn’t authorize Don’t Look Back? Well, how did Pennebaker get on the plane? Why aren’t we talking about Gimme Shelter? Again, authorized. I mean, the entire narrative of Gimme Shelter is the Stones reviewing the film. That’s the entire structure of the film. So, this question gets asked, but I want to encourage my friends who write about this subject to distinguish between the approaches the filmmakers take. “Authorized” is not the trigger, or not the defining characteristic. The defining characteristic is the approach, the filmmaking, the principles behind the filmmaking, the art.

But I also think a lot of the time it does depend on the subject, and how self-involved the subject is, and how able to pierce that shield the filmmaker is. Given access, not every director is willing to tell the story they feel should be told.

I can only talk about my own experience. And I can’t think of a movie I made where I left feeling like my relationship with the subject did not result in the movie I was hoping to make.

There’s a long section about Elton’s performance with John Lennon at Madison Square Garden, where you really feel how on top of the music world he is. It’s sad and poignant, but it’s also incredibly powerful. And it makes the impact of the interview with Cliff Jahr [in 1976, where Elton comes out] so impactful. He’s at the absolute peak of his stardom, but you can hear him unburdening himself. Having the actual audio from that interview—not just a retelling—was amazing to me, as a fan, but also as someone who’s just living in 2024 and all this madness we’re living through.

Well, I’m a lucky filmmaker. The collaborators I’ve worked with for many years are incredibly gifted artists, one of whom, Ryan Gallagher, who is the co-producer of the film and lead researcher, and his team, were able to identify the fact that Cliff Jahr had bequeathed his life’s work to the New York Public Library. And somewhere in the bowels of the library were the audio tapes of Cliff’s interviews with Elton. But, even better, we also found unprocessed film. What?! There was a photographer in the room?! And then, Greg Fitton and Poppy Das, my brilliant collaborator-editors on this project, edited it in this beautiful, beautiful way. We worked on it for months to bring it to life. And David pointed out the incredibly important moment of Elton saying that he wanted to have children, which is something David had never heard him say before.

One of the great things about our collaboration was that David was able to be an emotional barometer. And when he first heard the interviews from Elton’s memoir set to footage, he called me up emotional, and he said, “I’ve heard Elton use that voice. Nobody else has.” And for me that was, wow, we’re onto something here. Because I want to be as intentional as possible with these interviews. If you look at a lot of the things I’ve done, we seek out alternatives to the talking head interview. I like to say, “There’s no talking head interviews in The Godfather. Why do we need talking head interviews?” So, we look for ways to keep the film in the right brain and not in the left brain. And those interviews were the perfect way.

There were so many revelations in your film about Martha Stewart. Is it harder to make a film about somebody like Elton John, whose story is so well-known? I knew the story, and yet, there were revelations in it, and it was those intimate revelations that were so powerful to me, that went way beyond his memoir. But was it more difficult to find those nuggets about Elton?

I think that every film is its own unique set of riddles. The great joy of the work I do is entering the world of the person whose story I’m telling and creating a work of art about it. It’s a narrative piece of cinema. And what’s the piece of cinema, what’s the work of art that’s going to tell the story of Eton, a man who has a gift from the heavens. It seems like God made Mozart and then when he was done, he said, “Let’s get to Elton John next.” But this boy, who had a complicated childhood grows up to know exactly how to be a rockstar, but not at all how to be the human being he wanted to be. How do you make a film about that journey?

You know, the editor of the Martha film went to see the Elton film last night, and he was like, “How did you do this?” This guy edited the Martha film! He edited the Martha film. This guy is a genius. He’s one of my dearest collaborators. And one of my other long-time collaborators edited the Elton film with me, and, after seeing Martha, was like, “How’d you do that?” And, you know, how we do it is to understand our subjects and the stories and themes of their lives and have them trust us.

It sounds like you had a pretty fully formed idea at your meeting with David of what you wanted to do, what you wanted to achieve and the story you wanted to tell.

Well, we had a very formed idea of what journey we wanted to go on. But, you know, you buy a ticket, you get on the boat, but you have no control over the currents or the wind. Really, truly. And by the way, there is so much we left untouched! Where’s the story of Elton’s relationship with Princess Diana? That’s not part of this. Where’s the story of the Watford Football Club? That’s not part of this.

His first marriage!

I’d be honored to tell those stories. They’re great stories. But this is a story of two moments; two decisions. And the reason it’s so emotional is because one decision makes it possible to be a human being, and the other decision recognizes the fundamental nature of what it means to be a human being, which is that your time here is very brief, and how you choose to spend it is entirely up to you. That’s powerful stuff.