- Elton John's ex-fiancée lied about being pregnant when he said he was leaving her, says Bernie Taupin.
- John's songwriting partner said Linda Hannon also threatened to inject "air bubbles into her veins."
Elton John's ex-fiancée Linda Hannon lied about being pregnant and threatened to inject air bubbles into her veins when the singer told her he was leaving her, says his songwriting partner Bernie Taupin.
Taupin, John's longtime friend and collaborator, makes the claims in his recently published memoir, "Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton and Me."
John met Hannon in 1968, when he was 21, and they quickly got engaged. Two years later, however, just weeks before their proposed wedding, John called things off.
Recalling the day after John ended things, Taupin, who says he lived with the couple at the time, writes: "Linda lobbed several threatening bombs. She was pregnant, would inject air bubbles into her veins, and I'm sure blamed the entire debacle on me."
According to the National Library of Medicine, intentionally injecting air bubbles into the veins can result in a venous air embolism, which, according to Medical News Today, can be fatal.
"Of course, it was all fabricated as they'd never had sex, we weren't junkies, and I was blameless, just sitting on the curb watching the whole train wreck happen," Taupin continues.
Representatives for John did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Insider also attempted to reach out to Hannon for comment.
Speaking with the Daily Mirror in 2019, Hannon said it was a shock when her wedding to John didn't go ahead.
"We were a month away from the wedding when he drunkenly woke me up and told me it was off," she said. "Then he called his stepfather to come and get him. He walked out and that was it. I was so shocked. I loved him very much, and I thought he loved me."
Taupin, who wrote or co-wrote many of John's biggest hits including "Bennie and the Jets" and "Candle in the Wind," adds in his memoir that weeks before the wedding, he and Hannon found John with his head inside a gas oven.
"Perhaps due to the unorthodox nature of his attempt, gas on low and an embroidered pillow to rest his head on, sympathy was not forthcoming," he writes.
Taupin says that upon seeing John, he merely laughed, and Hannon rolled her eyes and walked away.
Shortly after the incident, Taupin writes that he and John went on a night out in London's Soho, during which the singer came to terms with his sexuality, and subsequently went home and called things off with Hannon.
"I ducked for cover while Elton, fueled by alcohol yet slapped sober by the reality of it all, sallied forth to administer Linda's Waterloo," Taupin writes.
"The next day, Elton's stepfather arrived early to assist us in abandoning ship."