Still, he didn’t begin the turnaround in his life. “When I saw the footage of the funeral, I thought, ‘My God,’ ” John says. Even without the recent hair weave, which cost a reported $25,000, he looks years younger than in the photo. In the room, however, he is trim and upbeat, and there’s a sparkle in his eyes. In the photo, John looks like a sad old man-overweight, with gray hair and expressionless eyes. The contrast between John then and now is striking. John jumps up and races into a nearby room, returning with a photo of him apparently taken around the time of the White meetings. I was too busy organizing things and trying to help.” For that week or so I didn’t do any drugs or drink. And it felt good (for me to) be able to contribute. “I couldn’t believe that a family who had had so much hatred flung at them and so much bigotry could be so forgiving. getting angry at the littlest thing,” John says now, sitting on a step in the split-level apartment.
Moved by the boy’s plight, John was one of several celebrities-including Michael Jackson, Willie Nelson and football star Joe Montana-who tried to comfort White in the final days before his death, at age 18, in April, 1990. Through it all, he maintained a warm, forgiving, idealistic spirit. His family finally filed a discrimination suit against the local school system in 1985 after Ryan was barred from attending classes. John became engrossed in the youngster’s story, which included having to rally against the hostility of parents who feared their children would be infected if White were allowed to attend school. It has been widely assumed that John decided to seek help for cocaine and other addictions because of his emotional involvement with Ryan White, the Indiana teen-ager whose heroic battle against AIDS made headlines around the world. and I found in my life that I needed that.”
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“I feel free here,” he says, looking out the high-rise window at a vast wooded area below. Photos of Elizabeth Taylor and Sting rest on one table, but most of the adjacent pictures are of John relaxing with friends from outside show business. The living-room table is stacked with books-including the latest novel by Anne Rivers Siddons and a biography of Marilyn Monroe, whose own tragic career was chronicled in John’s hit single “Candle In the Wind.” The condo walls are covered with tasteful paintings and photographs, including some nature shots by Robert Mapplethorpe.īut there are no signs that this is a pop star’s residence no gold records, album covers or favorite concert shots. a lot of the simple things that I never did before.” Here, I drive myself around, go down to the market. If I’m in Los Angeles or New York, I get involved a lot with the industry and it’d be harder to just lead a normal life. “It’s a young city, and I don’t feel any pressure from the entertainment world. “I feel like a new kid on the block here,” he says, walking through an elegant living room furnished with pink and white cushions and chairs. He also can relax more easily here than in Los Angeles, where he maintained a home in the mid-'70s, or in New York. John, who also owns a London townhouse and a country estate in England, enjoys spending time in the United States and settled in Atlanta because he believes it is a city with lots of energy. The air outside is sticky and hot, but it’s comfortably cool inside John’s million-dollar apartment in a stylish new high-rise on Peachtree Street in Atlanta’s fashionable Buckhead section. “I didn’t want to die angry and bitter and sad, and that’s what I had become. “I had to change because I was frightened,” he explains of his decision to enter a treatment center in Chicago in 1990.
So, it’s easy to understand why he walked away with tears in his eyes in the ‘70s after his first meeting with a bloated and self-destructive Presley.īut John’s own condition became so desperate in the late ‘80s that some of his friends and associates now speak about the times they came away with tears of their own after seeing him in such bad shape.