Elton John says he ‘startled’ doctor with request before kneecap surgery

Singing legend underwent a double knee replacement in 2024

Elton John has shared how he turned his kneecaps into wearable fashion in his new documentary, Touched By Gold.

The short documentary, released by World Gold Council, features the British singing legend and pianist, 78, discussing how his life has been touched in unique and fascinating ways by the valuable metal.

John, who underwent a double knee replacement in 2024, was joined by jewelry designer Theo Fennell, who detailed the process of turning his joints into jewelry.

“When I had my kneecaps removed, the left one first and then the right, I asked my surgeon if I could keep the kneecaps, which he was rather startled about — then I rang you,” the “Rocket Man” hitmaker recalled in the documentary.

“We had to bake them to dry them out,” Fennell explained. “Then they get raw like pumice stone, they’re very porous, and so we had to paint them with acetate and then just polish them up.”

Elton John underwent a double knee replacement in 2024 (Getty)

He held up a necklace with a fragment of the bone framed in gold, with John describing it as “my right kneecap. That’s my right patella.”

“My surgeon said I had the worst knees he’s ever operated on,” the EGOT winner noted. “That hole was actually in my kneecap. It looks a bit like an old artifact from Egypt.”

Elton John wearing a necklace made from his own patella (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for BFI)

He further pointed out how Fennell “brilliantly had the necklace chain made out of bones.”

“I just thought it would be more fun to have a necklace that reflected the thing at the end of it,” Fennell added.

The back of the necklace is inscribed with a Latin phrase that means: “I will no longer bow to any man.”

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“Which of course you can’t do with a kneecap missing,” Fennell said.

As for John’s left kneecap, the jeweler said that it was turned into a brooch because “it was a smaller kneecap, and we couldn’t do so much with it.”

Elton John's brooch made of his left kneecap (World Gold Council/ YouTube)

“I honestly think these are timeless pieces that will last for centuries,” John declared.

The “Tiny Dancer” singer, who officially retired from touring in 2023, has undergone several procedures and faced numerous health issues over the years.

“To be honest with you, there’s not much of me left,” he said last October at a screening of Elton John: Never Too Late at the New York Film Festival.

“I don’t have tonsils, adenoids or an appendix. I don’t have a prostate. I don’t have a right hip or a left knee or a right knee. In fact, the only thing left to me is my left hip,” he quipped. “But I’m still here. And I can’t thank you [enough]; you’re the people that made me.”

John concluded the documentary recounting his final performances at Glastonbury and in Stockholm, Sweden.

“I ended on a high,” he reflected, “that’s what I wanted to end on.”