Elton John Helping Eminem Fight Drug Addiction

Posted on Jan 3rd 2010 4:00PM by Liz Colville
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British balladeer Sir Elton John has spoken out about Eminem's drug habit, praising the Detroit rapper for working to overcome an addiction to prescription pills -- with Elton's help, no less.

Elton told BBC Radio 5, "I've been helping Eminem over the last 18 months and he's doing brilliantly."

It was rumored last year that the pair was collaborating on Eminem's latest album, 'Relapse,' released last May. But it turns out the duo might have meeting to discuss more personal matters. Eminem told Rolling Stone last spring that he'd been confiding in the singer about his addiction.

The pair's first musical meeting was for a Grammy performance of the rapper's Dido-sampling hit 'Stan' in 2001. That put them under the spotlight, and not just because it seemed such an unlikely pairing. There were calls of both praise and criticism from the gay community, with some thinking Elton, who has dubbed himself "the most well-known homosexual in the world," shouldn't support Eminem because of the homophobic material in some of his songs. But for Eminem, the move was seen as an effort to wipe the slate clean on that issue.

Elton's continued outreach has evidently done Eminem a service. Eminem entered rehab in 2005 for his addiction, and was largely away from the spotlight until this year. He told Vibe magazine in a much-publicized interview in July 2009 that during his struggle, he was taking a combination of pills including Valium, Vicodin and Ambien in such large numbers that "I don't even know what I was taking."

Elton John has offered to help others with addiction in the past, including Michael Jackson, having successfully battled drug and alcohol addiction himself. But some, most notably George Michael, haven't been so warm to his advice. In 2004, Elton publicly expressed opinions about George's substance problems and said he thought he was "depressed," to which George responded that Elton ''should shut up and get on with his own life."

"I'm there if people want my help," Elton told the BBC this week. "If people ask for help you tell them where to go but there's no point advising people if they don't want to do it."