Elton John: "Growing up in the 1950s gave me no self-esteem."
22 October 2021, 17:31 | Updated: 22 October 2021, 17:48
"I just have terrible feelings about myself," says the superstar about his upbringing in the age of corporal punishment.
Sir Elton John claims that his lack of self-esteem as an adult came from the way he was treated as a child in the 1950s.
The pop legend - who was born in 1947 - has revealed what it was like to grow up in England during a period when schools used corporal punishment to discipline pupils.
He told The Guardian: "The self-loathing, not having any self-esteem, that all comes from when I was a kid.
"That’s the way it was in the 50s – you got slapped round the face, you got a good hiding. ‘It was bloody good for you’ – it wasn’t good for me. It left me walking on eggshells.”
The singer-songwriter went on to struggle with addiction as he was topping the charts around the world, but he has admitted he was too afraid to open up about his trauma and the reasons for his substance abuse until getting sober.
Sir Elton went on: "All my life, until I became sober, I was afraid of talking to anybody.
"They asked me when I went to treatment how I felt and I said, ‘I don’t know, I don’t feel anything.’ I came to defrost, as it were, and discovered I did have feelings, and they went back a long time.
"I think it stays with you for the whole of your life … I just have terrible feelings about myself; I feel bad about myself sometimes."
The musician later spoke of how he has used his own experiences to reach out and help fellow pop star Olly Alexander, who he performed It's A Sin with at the 2021 BRIT Awards.
Alexander - AKA Years & Years - was enduring a period of depression when Elton came to his aid.
Elton said: "Olly [Alexander] was down in the dumps recently, and I just said, 'Go out, have fun! Sit there alone, and that ball comes down like in Raiders Of The Lost Ark - an avalanche of bad feeling.”
