I'm glad I've given up drugs and alcohol. It would be awful to be like Keith Richards. He's pathetic. It's like a monkey with arthritis, trying to go onstage and look young.

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.

Basically, I wanted redemption for the way I lived my life beforehand, and that was the drugs, the drink, the loose sex, whatever.

We live in an age, in an era where there is so much negativity, there is so much violence in the world, there is so much unrest and people are at war, that I wanted to promote the word love and red signifies love.

I suspected my homosexuality, but I'd never acted out on it because I was afraid of sex. It's awful to be afraid of sex.

Well, I'm a huge fan of Ryan Adams, who's from North Carolina. And he's beginning to break really quite big.

I've had an amazing professional life, personal life, but at 64 to have a son who gives us that much love and enjoyment is, wow!