Sir. Elton John has acted as the benefactor to a former fiancé that he left jilted at the altar.
I’m sure at this point we all know the Elton John story, but before he came to transcend to the bedazzled-spectacle clad icon we all know and love, he was Reginald Dwight and Reginald Dwight was engaged to marry Linda Hannon.
John and Hannon met at a nightclub back in 1968. During their relationship, Hannon picked up the majority of the bills, an act of generosity that was not lost on John.
The pair were set to be married, though according to The Mirror, songwriting partner Bernie Taupin and blues singer Long John Baldry, talked John out of the nuptials. So it goes, “the pair got Elton ‘roaring drunk’ and told him to call it off, saying he was going to ruin two lives — his own and Linda’s.”
The dissolution of their relationship inspired John’s 1975 cut, ‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight’. “You almost had your hooks in me, didn’t you dear? / You nearly had me roped and tied, altar-bound, hypnotized.”
Per The Mirror, the now 76-year-old Linda Hannon, who currently manages a doctor’s office in Dallas, needed a knee replacement but was unable to have the operation as she couldn’t afford to take the five weeks off work necessary for recovery. It was then that she decided to turn to John for help.
“In the late ’60s, Reg and Bernie [Taupin] weren’t earning any money, so I was hoping, from one friend to another, whether they could help me through this financial blip,” she explains. “When Reg started out, I was paying the rent, bills and for the food.”
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She continues, “My knee is awful to walk on..I thought of Reg and whether he could help. It was a long shot.”
So Shannon emailed Elton’s management, after not hearing back she asked the magazine for help. The paper reached out to John’s team and received a response shortly after.
A source close to Elton told The Mirror., “When [he] heard about Linda’s plight, he didn’t hesitate for a second to help out. He remembers how good she was [to him] 50 years ago, when he and Bernie needed the support, and is really pleased to be able to help her in her hour of need.”
“I am so touched by Reg,” Linda shared. “After all these years, it’s so kind.”
Check out ‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight’ by Elton John:
