ELTON JOHN: Read All About Him Today

The wait for one of the music world's most anticipated memoirs is over with the publication today (Tuesday) of Me by Elton John.

Elton John on his memoir,Me, which is out today (Tuesday):

With the narrative taken from a series of interviews he did specifically for the book, he delves deeper into some of what was covered in Rocketman-- his childhood, his songwriting partnership with Bernie Taupin, coming to grips with his sexuality, transforming from Reg Dwigh tinto Elton John, fame, his marriage to a woman, his years of addiction, owning a soccer team, his fight against AIDS, finding love and raising a family, and how to properly eat celery.

Elton said, “I [got] in trouble [by my father] if I ate celery in what was deemed The Wrong Way. The Right Way to eat celery, in the unlikely event that you’re interested, was apparently not to make too loud of a crunching sound when you bit into it. Once, he hit me because I was supposedly taking my school blazer off incorrectly.”

Among the revelations, he and his band were asked to be Jeff Beck's backing band in the early '70s. Yoko Ono asked him to finish the John Lennon songs, which he declined, that she eventually put together and released on the Milk and Honey album. And, just before the start of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, which resulted in him unable to control his bladder. This meant having to wear a diaper, and he tells of urinating into it while singing “Rocket Man” during his Las Vegas residency.