Elton John is looking back at being shamed for being gay.
During an appearance on Dua Lipa‘s podcast, the 75-year-old entertainer revealed that back in 2009, he and husband David Furnish were turned down from adopting a child from an orphanage in Ukraine because they were gay.
“I was carrying this little boy around for hours. We had a press conference at the end and they said ‘You seem very fond of this little boy. Would you think of adopting him?’ and I went ‘I’d actually love to!’” Elton recalled on Dua‘s “Dua Lipa: At Your Service” podcast.
“Of course, not thinking about social media, it went around the world straight away,” he continued. “It was ‘Elton John wants to adopt two children.’”
Elton then revealed that he and David were deemed ineligible to adopt due to their sexuality.
“Because I was gay I wasn’t allowed to anyway,” Elton explained. “After that happened, David said, ‘Well, what do you think about having kids?’ I always said no but this little boy was telling me something. He was saying ‘C’mon you can be a dad,’ and that’s when we decided to have children, because of this little boy in Ukraine.”
Elton and David have since welcomed two sons via surrogate – Zachary in 2010 and Elijah in 2013.
It was recently revealed that Elton will be skipping his annual Oscars party this year. Find out why.