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Vladimir Putin “loves” Sir Elton John's music.
The warmongering Russian president, 70, sends his best wishes to the ‘Rocket Man' singer, 76, on his birthday on WhatsApp, despite his nation's persecution of the LGBTQ+ community.
Sir Elton's husband David Furnish, 60, told The Guardian about Putin's messages: “Every March 25, I get a WhatsApp message from the Russian health minister saying: ‘I just want to wish Elton happy birthday and we wish him all the best and love his music so much.'
“So, it is this strange paradox.
“There's nothing in it for them to send me a WhatsApp on Elton's birthday. “They've done it a couple of birthdays in a row.”
David, who has children Zachary, 13, and Elijah, 10, with Elton, also joked: “I always make sure if there's an attachment, I never open it.”
And referencing the hacking of the Amazon founder's phone courtesy of a WhatsApp from the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, he added: “I don't want to end up like Jeff Bezos.”
David also told how Putin once rang their home landline to apologise to the singer after a pair of pranksters had called pretending to be the Russian leader in 2015.
He said: “Putin himself was so appalled by this that he wanted to ring up personally to say, ‘I'm sorry this happened.'
“I remember the call coming in – the whole house froze. Vladimir Putin's phoning the landline in your house. Perfect English.
“He just said, ‘I'm sorry that someone phoned you up and pretended to be me because you don't deserve to be, you know, pranked or treated like that. And I hear you would like to sit down and meet and talk with me one day. I would welcome that, I would love to talk to you.'”
Elton has attacked Putin over his 2019 claim Russia had “no problem” with LGBTQ+ people, hitting out in a series of tweets that said: “Dear President Putin, I was deeply upset when I read your recent interview in the Financial Times.
“I strongly disagree with your view that pursuing policies that embrace multicultural and sexual diversity are obsolete in our societies.
“I find duplicity in your comment that you want LGBT people to ‘be happy' and that ‘we have no problem in that'.
“Yet Russian distributors chose to heavily censor my film ‘Rocketman' by removing all references to my finding true happiness through my 25-year relationship with David and the raising of my two beautiful sons.
“This feels like hypocrisy to me. I am proud to live in a part of the world where our governments have evolved to recognise the universal human right to love whoever we want.
“And I'm truly grateful for the advancement in government policies that have allowed and legally supported my marriage to David.
“This has brought us both tremendous comfort and happiness.”
