Since the 1970s, John has been friends with the royals. According to the Press Association, Princess Margaret and The Queen Mother were lovers of his music. He accompanied Margaret at art festivals and was a guest at the Prince Trust’s annual concerts.

“He had remained for years on the guest list to parties at Buckingham Palace and, again according to reports, at one such event jived with the Queen to Bill Haley’s hit ‘Rock Around The Clock,’” the Press Association wrote earlier this year.

In 1986, John and his then-wife Renate sat front-row at Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew’s royal wedding. According to Town & Country, Margaret’s son David Linley, a furniture craftsman, has John as a customer.

Elton John met Princess Diana at Prince Andrew’s 21st birthday party at Windsor Castle, and he instantly felt a bond.

He writes, “She was blessed with an incredible social ease, an ability to talk to anybody, to make herself seem ordinary.” Despite her contempt for royal formality, he did note that she had a distant and frosty relationship with her spouse, Prince Charles.

When the two spent more time together, John saw what he dubbed the “Diana Effect” on men on several occasions. At one dinner party, he watched as Richard Gere and Sylvester Stallone both fell in love with her and almost clashed before being separated, with Gere triumphing and Stallone storming home. John recalls Stallone grumbling, “I never would have come if I’d known Prince f-ckin’ Charming was gonna be here.” “If I’d wanted her, I would’ve taken her!”

“She could bring Hollywood superstars to the verge of a punch-up over her attentions at a dinner party, like a couple of love-struck teenager idiots,” John writes.

The two fell out when Diana backed out of writing the foreword to a rock photography book with sales going to the AIDS Foundation. John writes, “I think Buckingham Palace didn’t like the idea of a member of the royal family having anything to do with a book that featured shots of naked guys with towels draped around them,” John writes. They reconciled at Gianni Versace’s funeral — but it was to be the last time they saw each other, as Diana died in a car crash a few weeks later.”

The notorious feud between Princess Diana and Elton John over a disputed book on royals.

The deep and unbreakable relationship between Princess Diana and music legend Elton John had become the talk of the town.

However, the Princess of Wales and the recording legend had a public spat just months before her passing.

“She was a very dear friend for years, and then, completely unexpectedly, we fell out,” John wrote in his 2019 autobiography, Me: Elton John, though the two did later repair their relations just before her passing.

According to John, the princess agreed to write the foreword for his coffee-table book, Rock and Royalty, which was created by their mutual friend Gianni Versace.

She had already vowed, according to him, that she would attend the book’s launch, which was held in February 1997 at a fundraiser dinner for Elton’s AIDS Foundation.

The princess changed her mind about attending after seeing an early copy of the book, despite having already paid over $400,000 for seats.

In his biography, Charles — The Man Who Will Be King, published in 2007, Howard Hodgson wrote that Diana’s actions were “foolish,” but she had a cause.

“Given the title of the book and the author’s reputation, she was perhaps a little foolish to have left it until so late in the day — but she couldn’t have cared less about how the Royal Family might have regarded such a publication when she agreed to write the foreword and attend the launch,” he added.

He went on to say that she was “horrified” when she first saw the book, which featured naked models alongside senior members of the British royal family, including Queen Elizabeth II.

Although she recognized that it was “artistic,” she also recognized that “it would not appeal to the more old -fashioned sensibilities of Prince Charles or his mother.”

After the publication of Gianni Versace’s and John’s coffee table book Rock and Royalty, Diana and John went silent for months. John was in a “deep freeze” when the book came out, according to Tina Brown of Vanity Fair.

“Pictures of members of the royal family, including one of the Princess and the boys, appeared amid a portfolio of semi-nude male models, and Diana feared that would upset the Queen,” Brown wrote. “Royalties from the book benefited John’s AIDS foundation.”

After Versace’s passing, there was a moment of reconciliation.

Diana called John when their mutual friend, the designer was shot and killed in front of his Miami Beach house.

In a recent interview, he spoke about that time period:

“She was very much loved. She was a controversial figure in some respects, but not to me. I loved her because she did so much for AIDS and she was a great friend to me. We had our fallings out, but we reconciled in the end. It was an extraordinary summer. Gianni Versace was murdered [on July 15, 1997], and then Diana rang me up and we reconciled. And six weeks later, I’m in the same house, and she’s dead. It was an extraordinary and mesmerizing summer, and I just couldn’t believe what was going on.”

John told Time about meeting a young Prince Harry at Kensington Palace in a recent interview.

John said, ““I first met an extremely shy and sweet Prince Harry at a private lunch at Kensington Palace, given by his mother Princess Diana for Gianni Versace and me many years ago,” John said. “What a joy it has been to see that young boy grow to inherit his mother’s warmth, sense of humor and courage to stand up and champion the causes he truly believes in.”