Elton John is opening up about the debilitating infection that has left him struggling with his eyesight.
“It’s been devastating,” the 78-year-old singer told Variety in a profile released on Tuesday. “I lost my [vision in my] right eye and my left eye’s not so good, the last 15 months have been challenging for me because I haven’t been able to see anything, watch anything, read anything.”
Still, the musician acknowledged: “I’ve had the most incredible life, and there is hope.”
“I’ve just gotta be patient that someday science will help me with this one. Once they help me with this one, I’ll be fine,” he said, explaining that “it’s exactly like the AIDS situation.”
“You mustn’t give up hope, you must be stoic, you must be strong and you must always try and batter the door down to try and improve things,” he said.
John pictured earlier this year at the 2025 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on Nov. 8, 2025, in Los Angeles.
Kevin Kane via Getty Images
John said that his illness “does get me down sometimes,” but that “you just have to grin and bear it.”
“I’ve got a wonderful family; I have two great kids; I have him,” he said, gesturing to his husband, David Furnish. He also shared that a host of fellow celebrity friends check in on him.
“Paul McCartney FaceTimes me to see how I’m doing. It’s really beautiful. The love I’ve received from him and from Pete Townshend and Mick Jagger and people like that have been amazing,” he said. “Or you get an email from Keith Richards saying, ‘Hello, darling, how you doing? You know we love you,’ and that’s it, but it just makes my day.”
John first mentioned losing his eyesight last year, when he said a “severe eye infection” had left him with “only limited vision in one eye.”
A few months later, he was able to joke about his health condition at the 2025 Golden Globes when he presented an award alongside his friend and fellow musician Brandi Carlile.
“I don’t know if you know, but there’s been a lot of stories going around about my regressive eyesight. I just want to reassure everybody that it’s not as bad as it seems,” he said at the time. “So I’m so pleased to be here with my co-host, Rihanna!”