Sir Elton John will bring on four special guests during his headline show at Glastonbury this weekend, his husband David Furnish has revealed.
The Rocket Man superstar will take to the Pyramid stage at Worthy Farm on Sunday night for what has been billed as his final UK gig.
Discussing Sir Elton’s plans for surprises at the show, Furnish told Sky News’ Beth Rigby: “Four collaborators of his choosing.
“People, he just thought, ‘I’d really like to do something with these artists at Glastonbury’. And that’s all I’m going to say.”
Asked who they might be, Furnish said: “Sorry. I am sworn to secrecy.”
He added: “This one is very special. It is not just another day in the office.
“It’s a different set list – it’s a huge outdoor live festival. He’s got four different collaborators joining him on stage at different times, who I won’t name, sorry.
“So, he’s done a lot of changes. A lot on his plate, so I think he’s anxious. Yeah, but I think good, anxious, healthy anxious.”
Sir Elton will close the festival on Sunday after headline shows from Arctic Monkeys on Friday and Guns N’ Roses on Saturday.
Furnish also said Sir Elton will not give up on music after his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour ends in Sweden next month, and will start work on a new studio album in the autumn.
He said: “I don’t think he’ll be sitting on the sofa with a remote control.
“He’s going to go back into the studio in October and start his next album. Which will be great. He’s not done a studio album in a long time.”
Furnish also backed Sir Elton’s previous claim that media coverage of the Phillip Schofield scandal had been “homophobic”.
The film producer said: “I think without question, Phillip Schofield, and Elton agrees, behaved inappropriate. And it could be perceived as an abuse of power.
“He lied about it, so he behaved inappropriately. I think what was horrifying to watch was what I would call a disproportionate response within certain levels of the media, where it was written about over and over and over, where they were piling on for days and then weeks, continually writing negative, highly critical pieces.
“It felt disproportionate to the situation at hand. He did an interview. He acknowledged he’d made mistakes. He wants to go forward with his life.
“I would also like to add that the same publications didn’t give the same level of attention to a prime minister who lied and misled the parliament, which to me is a much, much greater offence.
“That, to me, points to homophobia.”
Furnish also discussed the Duke of Sussex, who is a friend of the couple, saying Harry was “pleased” with how his evidence during the ongoing phone-hacking court case went.
He said: “He’s fine. Harry’s great.
“I mean, he’s taken a lot of flak in the media, and you have to remember he’s taking on the media. So what actually happens in the courtroom, and what you read about in the newspaper are often two very, very different things.
“But we are in fairly regular contact, and he was very pleased the way things went in court. And he’s doing really well.”
David Furnish is on the Beth Rigby Interviews… show at 9pm on June 22 on Sky News, or catch up with the Beth Rigby Interviews… podcast.