How to Watch UK TV Channels Outside of the UK? I'll give you a simple trick that will explain how to watch UK TV channels live abroad. Now you can watch all of your favorite UK TV programmes while you are away from home without VPN with 1Fakt.com
Elton John is one of Britain’s biggest music icons, releasing hit singles such as Tiny Dancer and Rocket Man. The musician was known for his incredible music and impressive on-stage persona. But before he found fame, he was engaged to tie the knot to fiancée Linda Hannon in 1970.
Now, his jilted bride has spoken out about their rocky relationship with the musician and how he “drunkenly” broke off their engagement weeks before their wedding. The 81-year-old said she was devastated when John – then known as Reg White – called off their nuptials months before his first big hit, Your Song.
READ MORE: Elton finds lost pot of pop gold at his unheard two-man Rainbow show
READ MORE: Elton John leaves fans emotional as he issues huge health update
Linda now lives in Texas and works as a doctor’s office manage – a far cry from the glamorous lodgings the chart-topper owns across the globe, now boasting a net worth of £300million.
Speaking about their heartbreaking romance, she told Express.co.uk: “We were a month away from the wedding when he drunkenly woke me up and told me it was off. Then he called his stepfather to come and get him. He walked out and that was it. I was so shocked.”
The heartbroken bride, who still has her engagement ring, added: “John Baldry and Bernie took Reg out for drinks at the Bag O’ Nails club in Soho and got him roaring drunk. Then they told him to call off the wedding, insisting he was going to ruin two lives, his own and mine.”
Five years later, Elton released the song Someone Saved my Life Tonight which is said to be about his relationship with Linda. The lyrics written by Bernie Taupin include: “You almost had your hooks in me, didn’t you dear? You nearly had me roped and tied, altar-bound, hypnotised.”
Reflecting on the song, she confessed: “It’s painful to hear that song. I loved him very much, I really did, and I thought he loved me.” Linda met Elton in a club in Sheffield back in 1968 when he approached her table.
Thinking back to that time, she mused: “Was there an instant spark? I don’t know, but he had never been to Sheffield before, so I offered to show him around.
"It quickly became romantic when he asked me to visit him in London. I went to stay with him at his mother’s place. He was an absolute mummy’s boy but I was three years older and more worldly-wise. He was definitely a virgin. He was very affectionate.”
Their romance moved quickly, with Linda soon leaving Sheffield to move to North London where they shared a flat together with Elton’s songwriting partner Bernie Taupin.
Linda recalled: “We had furniture on hire purchase. I didn’t have much money. I paid for everything. We went everywhere by bus. We were happy, or so I thought. I don’t think Reg actually proposed, we just discussed getting married and talked about wedding plans.
“I went out and bought my own ring. Reg was absent. I still have the ring, it’s a garnet, which is my birthstone, with diamonds around it.”
She went on to share the plans they had made for their upcoming wedding, explaining: “The register office was booked. And his mum had ordered the cake.
“We weren’t planning a huge affair. It was going to be family, a few close friends.” But after Elton broke up with Linda, all contact was cut. Linda revealed: “Reg and I have never been in communication since he woke me up to say he was leaving.
"His stepfather arrived with a truck and moved him out. I read somewhere that Elton paid me off. I’ve never received a dime from him. If we’d married, maybe I wouldn’t be sitting here in Dallas, still working as a doctors’ office manager at 75.”
After calling it quits with Linda, Elton went on to tie the knot with Renate Blauel in 1984, but their romance wasn’t built to last with the couple divorcing in 1988 when he came out as gay and marrying his long-term partner David Furnish in 2014.
In 2010, Linda attended one of Elton John’s concerts and has tried to contact him through the press on several occasions, but has not heard from him since.
Thinking over the performance, she confessed: “I choked up a bit when I saw him on stage. It was hard to imagine the Red I knew as the man up there in the arena.”
She added that despite their relationship, she was not contacted by the production company ahead of the release of his biopic Rocketman.
Linda concluded: “No one from the film production company has been in touch with me. Maybe I’ve been forgotten or written out of Reg’s life.
“I have no bitterness now and his biographer told me Red regretted the way he’d dumped me. It was such a long time ago and I prefer to think of the happy memories. I never imagined he’d be as popular as he is. But to me he’ll always be just Reg.”