In the latest season of Wondery’s Even The Rich, hosts Brooke and Aricia tell the story of Elton John. Before he was Reginald Dwight. Reginald hates who he is: a chubby, awkward kid from a fractured English home. So he escapes through music, and reinvents himself as Elton John. The journey take him far away from his neglected childhood and morphs him into a spoiled, coke-addicted rock superstar. But underneath the glitz and glamour, an inescapable sadness persists. No matter how many hit records he makes or lines he snorts, Elton can’t escape himself. His world eventually crashes down in a torrent of addictions, depression, and self-loathing. But when he finally learns to love himself, he grows into the person he was meant to be, enabling thousands of others to do so and becoming an LGBTQ icon.

Listen to the rest of this episode at wondery.fm/ETR_TheDailySmile.

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