How Rod Stewart’s ‘One Last Time’ Tour Could Deepen Rift with Elton John
Rod Stewart announced his “One Last Time” tour on Monday (November 18). While the tour announcement didn’t specifically refer to the trek as a “farewell tour,” Stewart told People in 2023, “No more big tours. I’ve said farewell to Australia and New Zealand and Mexico, so it’s time to say farewell to the U.S. now.”
Somewhere right now, Elton John is absolutely furious.
For a number of years now, Sir Rod and Sir Elton have been at odds with one another, despite once being very close friends. The reason for their rift is due to John’s farewell tour.
Back in March 2018, Stewart appeared on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen. When he was asked what he thought about John’s retirement tour, he said.”I did email her [Elton] and said, ‘What, again dear?’ And, I didn’t hear anything back. But talking about the retirement, I think I’ve never spoken about retirement, and if I do retire, I won’t make an announcement. I’ll just fade away. This whole big deal, ‘Oh, I’m going to retire!’, it stinks of selling tickets.”
These comments did not sit well with John, who essentially went radio silent on the matter in public for two years. He eventually spoke out about Stewart’s comments in the 2020 paperback edition of his memoir, Me. In the edition’s bonus chapter, Sir Elton wrote, “I certainly didn’t feel like I needed a lecture on the feral spirit of rock and roll from someone who’d spent most of the last decade crooning his way through the Great American Songbook and Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. What’s more, I thought he had a f—ing cheek, complaining about me promoting a tour while he was sat on a TV show promoting his own tour.”
U.K.’s The Sun noted that months after Stewart’s comments, John “…sent his rival a message saying he loved him and they had ‘known each other far too long to fall out over something like that’.” However, John said he didn’t receive an immediate response but later heard from Stewart’s manager saying he was on “constant vocal rest” during his then tour and couldn’t speak on the phone. John noted that Stewart’s need for vocal rest didn’t stop him from making additional talk show appearances.
Sir Elton added in the new chapter, “I had no idea what I’d done to upset him so much. Which was ironic, given the hours I’d put in over the years deliberately trying to annoy him.”
The Sun also noted Sir Rod saying the producers of Watch What Happens Live, “They make sure you get drunk before you go on. Four big shots of neat vodka and with me being a butch man, I knocked them all back. I said that 300 dates in three years sounded a bit money-grabbing to me. Look, I know where’s he’s coming from. He’s just got two kids very, very late in life but I’m planning my tours around my kids. I think he’ll miss it. I can’t wait for the next show.”
