Elton John Shares Emotional New Details About Lifelong Food Addiction

Elton John, 78, gave emotional new details about his longtime struggle with food addiction in the new sports documentary, Give Me the Ball!, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival yesterday.

While the film centers on the life and accomplishments of tennis legend Billie Jean King, 82, it also documents King and John’s decade-spanning friendship. The pair first met in the early 1970s, eventually bonding over their sexualities and shared experiences with food addiction.

“These sorts of things take their toll, and we had very honest conversations about food, as an addictive substance,” John said in the documentary, according to People magazine.

The singer added that food addiction poses a unique challenge that other substances don’t: “You have to eat to stay alive. I did other drugs, but the hardest drug to give up is food.”

In a 2019 conversation with his biographer Philip Norman in The Mirror, John admitted his obsession with food was all-consuming. “I was always rushing, always thinking about the next thing,” he said. “If I was eating a curry, I couldn’t wait to throw it up so that I could have the next one.”

The “Tiny Dancer” singer has spoken before about simultaneously battling bulimia nervosa and addictions to cocaine, alcohol, and sex. In 2001, John told the BBC that he entered counseling in 1990 for alcoholism, drug addiction, and compulsive eating.

In July 2025, he celebrated 35 years sober.

King, too, has previously spoken about food addiction. She spoke on actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s podcast Wiser Than Me about her struggle with binge-eating disorder, saying that despite receiving professional help for it, it’s still something she battles with daily.

“I’m a binge eater,” the athlete told Louis-Dreyfus. “Every morning I wake up, I tell myself I have an eating disorder. I still go to therapy. I still think about it.”

Give Me the Ball! also detailed the kinship the two found beyond food.

“We confided in each other about how it was for each other and how hard it was to be gay,” King said in the documentary, according to People. “We talked a lot about that and how it was horrible hiding — what do you do, how do you figure it out?”

John came out as bisexual in 1976 and gay in 1992, while King was publicly outed by her former assistant in 1981.

John noted that his career choice may have led him to fare better than his friend, explaining, “It was much easier for me. Everybody in the business knew I was gay. I mean, in show business, it’s not that big of a deal. I think it was much, much harder for her.”