Legendary singer-songwriter Elton John has shared heartfelt and deeply personal reflections on his battle with eyesight loss, offering rare insight into how the condition has transformed his day-to-day life, his creativity, and his hopes for the future.
In a bittersweet twist, Elton is famous for his eyewear: The feather-trimmed frames, the heart-shapes, the diamanté rims. They weren’t just a fashion choice but a hallmark of his theatricality, as recognisable as his voice. He even brought a range of eyewear to Australia with Specsavers in 2025.
We spoke with Elton at the time about his love of spectacles:
“I remember seeing these incredible women wearing oversized glasses, which I just thought were glamorous. I tried on a pair and loved that sense of being able to have something so expressive. From that moment, eyewear became so important to my style. The bolder the better! I wasn’t just putting on a pair of glasses; I was putting out a statement.”
What has happened with Elton John’s eyesight?
In July 2024, while on holiday in the south of France, Elton contracted a severe eye infection. In September, he acknowledged publicly that the infection left him with “only limited vision in one eye.”
At around that time, he wrote on Instagram: “I am healing, but it’s an extremely slow process, and it will take some time before sight returns to the impacted eye. I am so grateful for the excellent team of doctors and nurses and my family…”
Weeks later, his situation had worsened: at a public appearance, he admitted plainly, “I have lost my eyesight.”
What he says about living with limited vision
In a candid 2024 interview with Good Morning America (GMA), Elton revealed the full emotional weight of the loss: “It kind of floored me, and I can’t see anything. I can’t read anything, I can’t watch anything.”
He added that — while his right eye was lost — his “left eye is not the greatest.” The result has been a drastic change: unable to read, watch TV, or even see his sons playing sports — everyday moments that he used to take for granted.
As he put it in an interview with The Times: “I can’t see my boys playing rugby and soccer … It’s distressing. You get emotional … but you have to get used to it, because I’m lucky to have the life I have.”
He has also spoken about the creative disruption: not being able to “see a lyric for a start” has made recording new music challenging and uncertain.
But nothing will keep Elton down
Despite admitting how deeply the vision loss has affected him — emotionally, personally, professionally — Elton John repeatedly emphasises hope, perseverance and gratitude.
In a recent interview with Variety, he described the last 15 months as “challenging,” but said, “I’ve had the most incredible life, and there is hope. I’ve just gotta be patient, that someday science will help me with this one. Once they help me with this one, I’ll be fine.”
He urged perseverance, drawing on decades of fighting for causes close to his heart:
“You mustn’t give up hope, you must be stoic, you must be strong, and you must always try and batter the door down to try and improve things.”
At the 2025 Golden Globe Awards — where he co-presented with collaborator Brandi Carlile — he even found humour amid adversity. On stage, he joked: “There’s been a lot of stories going around about my regressive eyesight … I just wanted to reassure everybody that it’s not as bad as it seems.”
At the gala opening of the stage musical The Devil Wears Prada: The Musical, for which Elton wrote the score, he admitted:
“I haven’t been able to come to many of the previews because, as you know, I have lost my eyesight … but I love to hear it and, boy, it sounded good tonight.”
Does this mean Elton John will retire?
Unlikely! Sir Elton John doesn’t have any concrete plans to stop making music. However, he’s done a farewell tour, the Farewell Yellow Brick Road. This four ran for five years (with some delays due to the pandemic). It only wrapped in 2023. That tour was meant to be the end of his touring, but not of performing or making music.
In fact, the same week he did the interview with Variety about his eyesight, he announced a tour in Brazil in September 2026, to make up for a show he missed there during the Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour.
