Elton John’s husband tells court of outrage at U.K. tabloids

Elton John, left, and David Furnish attend the premiere of "Elton John: Never Too Late" during the Toronto International Film Festival on Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Music legend Elton John’s husband told a London court Thursday the couple was “outraged” that British tabloids had allegedly “stolen” private information about them.

The pair are among seven high-profile figures, including Prince Harry, suing Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL) -- the publisher of the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday -- for privacy invasions.

“It has outraged us that The Mail used our friendships against us by stealing information through them,” David Furnish, 63, told London’s High Court in the trial’s third week.

He accused the ANL journalists of publishing articles with “sensitive” information about their son’s birth and alleged that “Elton’s medicals were ransacked with impunity”.

His remote witness statement came two weeks after an emotional Prince Harry took the stand to blast the publisher, accusing it of making his wife’s life “an absolute misery”.

John is expected to give evidence remotely on Friday.

Furnish and John, 78, accuse ANL of obtaining the information through private investigators and the tapping of their landline.

Like Harry, Furnish told the court his friends and “inner” circle would not have shared private information with the media.

“My friends know anything relating to me and my family is not to be discussed with anyone in the media,” the Canadian filmmaker, who also manages his husband, said.

“Elton and I have a long and difficult history with The Mail. For years they have been actively homophobic,” he added.

Furnish stressed listening in on phone calls was an “abomination” and said the pieces written about them were “designed to undermine who we are and how we live our lives.”

Other high-profile figures -- including actors Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost -- have joined the couple in suing the publisher.

ANL has consistently denied all the claims against it -- which relate to more than 50 articles in a period from at least 1993 to 2018 -- calling them “lurid” and “preposterous”.

“Elton and I are profoundly affected by the uncertainty of not knowing how many times we were targeted, especially in relation to Elton’s medicals because he was always in and out of hospital,” Furnish said in the witness statement.

“We still don’t know what was really done to us.”