Madonna & Elton John Call Off Years-Long Feud, Tease Collaboration

Long-time frenemies Madonna and Elton are letting bygones be bygones. The music legends “buried the hatchet” following Elton’s Saturday Night Live performance over the weekend after a long-running feud that dates as far back as the early 2000s. Though they don’t look too friendly in the photo snapped backstage, we’ll take their word for it.

“We finally buried the hatchet,” Madonna wrote on Monday. “I went to see Elton John perform on SNL this weekend!! WOW. I remembered when I was in high school- I snuck out of the house one night to see Elton perform live in Detroit! It was an unforgettable performance that helped me understand the transformative power of music.”

Now, how did all of this happen? The beef is alleged to have begun when Elton called Madonna’s Die Another Day soundtrack “the worst Bond tune ever,” saying the track would have been better suited to Lulu or Shirley Bassey. In 2004, things took a nasty turn after Madonna was nominated for Best Live Act at the Q Awards. After winning another award, Elton used his speech as an opportunity to slight Madonna’s nomination, saying, “Madonna, Best Live Act? Fuck off. Since when has lip-syncing been live?” He later called the comments “unfair.”

The feud ping-ponged in the following years, like in 2012 when Elton’s husband David Furnish even got in on things. He spoke out following Madonna’s Golden Globes victory that year, saying, “Madonna winning Best Original Song truly shows how these awards have nothing to do with merit. Her acceptance speech was embarrassing in its narcissism.” Madonna replied to the couple’s pointed reaction shortly after. “Elton has been known to get mad at me, so I don't know. He's brilliant, and I adore him, so he’ll win another award. I don't feel bad.”

In 2016, John claimed on The Graham Norton Show that he apologized to Madonna when the two were dining at the same restaurant. “I sent her a note saying, ‘You’ll probably never speak to me again, but I am really sorry and ashamed of myself and can I buy you dinner.’ She was very gracious and accepted, and we talked.” Elton also addressed the riff in his 2019 memoir, Me. “The problem really started when she ran [Lady] Gaga down on an American chat show,” he wrote. “I got that Gaga’s single ‘Born This Way’ definitely sounded similar to ‘Express Yourself,’ but I couldn’t see why she was so ungracious and nasty about it.”

Madonna addressed how the feud affected her in the post she shared on Monday. “Over the decades it hurt me to know that someone I admired so much shared his dislike of me publicly as an artist,” she wrote.

The Grammy winner continued, “I didn’t understand it. I was told Elton John was the musical guest on SNL and I decided to go. I needed to go backstage and confront him. When I met him, the first thing out of his mouth was, ‘Forgive me,’ and the wall between us fell down. Forgiveness is a powerful tool. Within minutes. We were hugging. Then he told me [he] had written a song for me and he wanted to collaborate. It was like everything came full circle!! And you can tell everybody, ‘This is Your Song.’”