Elton John

I've had an amazing professional life, personal life, but at 64 to have a son who gives us that much love and enjoyment is, wow!

I am so in the past. I'm such a Luddite when it comes to making music. All I can do is write at the piano.

When your persona begins to take over your music and becomes more important, you enter a dangerous place. Once you have people around you who don't question you, you're in a dangerous place.

People with HIV are still stigmatized. The infection rates are going up. People are dying. The political response is appalling. The sadness of it, the waste.

At heart I've always been a music fan. That part of me has never changed since I was a little kid, sitting in a room watching a record go round, looking at the colour of the labels.

I was just genuinely shy. I'd always been a shy kid.

I grew up at my grandmother's house and she had a beautiful garden. I used to hate mowing the lawn and weeding, which is what you do when you're a kid.

I've got that resilient thing inside me. But I wasn't a happy bunny.

I have no one to leave the money to. I'm a single man. I like spending my money.

I used to get my money at the end of the week, buy my mum something, or buy a record, and that was it.

The whole point of being in this business and being blessed and being successful is that you're able to do things for your friends or your family, which means that they can have something special in their lives, too.

I never thought of myself as being handsome or good-looking or whatever. I always felt like an outsider.