I've dodged so many bullets. Not just because of unsafe sex, but because of the amount of drugs I did, the amount of alcohol, the amount of work I was doing. I started the Elton John AIDS Foundation because I got so lucky.

Once you have people around you who don't question you, you're in a dangerous place.

And there's no guarantee that if you get HIV and you take these triple therapies, or whatever comes along next, that they're going to be successful for you.

I heard Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, and that was it. I didn't ever want to be anything else. I just started banging away and semi-studied classical music at the Royal Academy of Music but sort of half-heartedly.

Everything I thought I'd hate about having children - the crying, the screaming - nothing fazes me. I love it all and it's relaxed me.

People with HIV are still stigmatized. The infection rates are going up. People are dying. The political response is appalling. The sadness of it, the waste.

When people go to rehab and come out, they go through a difficult period, a lot of people. I never had that. I was so glad to be rid of all that crap that for me, to learn again and to function as a human being and learn how to participate in the human race again was just pure joy.