President Vladimir Putin ‘loves’ Sir Elton John’s music.<\/p>\n
Warmonger Russia’s 70-year-old president congratulated the 76-year-old “Rocketman” singer on WhatsApp on his birthday despite the country’s persecution of the LGBTQ+ community.<\/p>\n
Sir Elton’s husband, David Furnish, 60, told The Guardian about Putin’s message. “Every year on March 25th, I get a message on WhatsApp from the Minister of Health of Russia: ‘We wish Elton a happy birthday. We wish him luck and love.’ His music is amazing. .”<\/p>\n
“So it’s a strange paradox.<\/p>\n
“It doesn’t make sense for them to WhatsApp me on Elton’s birthday saying, ‘They did it several times in a row on their birthdays.'”<\/p>\n
David, who has two children with Elton, Zachary, 13, and Elijah, 10, joked, “I always make sure I never open any attachments.”<\/p>\n
“I don’t want to end up like Jeff Bezos,” he said, noting that the Amazon founder’s phone was hacked courtesy of WhatsApp from the Saudi Crown Prince.<\/p>\n
David also said Putin once called his home landline in 2015 to apologize to the singer after two pranksters called him pretending to be Russian leaders.<\/p>\n
“President Putin himself was very surprised by this and wanted to call him directly to say, ‘I’m sorry that this happened,'” he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember getting a phone call. The whole house froze. President Vladimir Putin is calling your home landline. Perfect English.<\/p>\n
“He just said, ‘I’m sorry someone called you and pretended to be me, because you don’t deserve to be pranked or treated like that.’ I would love to talk to you about it.”<\/p>\n
Elton attacked Putin in 2019 for claiming that Russia had “no problem” with LGBTQ+ people, in a series of tweets.<\/p>\n
“I strongly disagree with your view that pursuing policies that are multicultural and sexually diverse is outdated in our society.<\/p>\n
“I think you are duplicitous in your comment that you want LGBT people to be ‘happy’ and ‘we have no problem with that’.<\/p>\n
“However, the Russian distributor has made my film Rocket by removing all references to my finding true happiness through my 25-year relationship with David and how I raised my two beautiful sons. Mann’ has chosen to censor heavily.<\/p>\n
“This feels like hypocrisy to me. I am proud to live in a part of the world where governments have evolved to recognize the universal human right to love whoever we want.”<\/p>\n
“And I am truly grateful for the progress in government policy that allowed and legally supported my marriage to David.<\/p>\n
“This has brought us great comfort and happiness.”<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n