Elton John and David Furnish. file | Photo courtesy: Reuters
Pop icon Elton John testified at the High Court in London on Friday (February 6, 2026), accusing the publisher of two UK tabloids of a “disgusting” breach of privacy “beyond the most basic standards of human decency”.
Giving evidence in joint legal action against Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL), publisher of the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, Mr John claimed the newspapers had unlawfully accessed his and his family’s medical records.
Other complainants in the case include Prince Harry, King Charles III’s younger son, and actor Liz Hurley.
“I find the mail’s deliberate invasion of my medical health and medical details surrounding the birth of our son Zachary to be abhorrent and beyond even the most basic standards of human decency,” John wrote in a witness statement released as he began testifying by video link.
Wearing a green blazer and purple tie, the 78-year-old musician, who has a troubled relationship with British tabloids, looked angry as he testified.
She and her husband, David Furnish – who testified on Thursday (February 5) – accused the UK publisher of using illegal methods to gather information used in 10 articles between 2000 and 2015.
ANL has strongly denied the claims made against its journalism, calling them “absurd” and “absurd”.
The couple’s friend Ms Hurley and Prince Harry spoke during the first two weeks of the trial. Actor Sadie Frost and two other public figures are among the seven claimants suing ANL.
“This case involves one of the most horrific things in the world that you could ever suffer from a privacy standpoint,” Mr. John told the trial, which is in its third week and expected to last until March.
The “Rocket Man” singer alleged that all three of the family’s landlines “were hacked, including the junction box at the end of the road”.
“I was furious,” Mr John told the court, adding that he had “never been afraid of my battles with the British press.”
Not ‘fair play’
Mr Furnish accused The Mail on Thursday (February 5) of “stealing” his son Zachary’s birth certificate and publishing it before the couple received a copy.
The film producer, who also manages her musician husband, also accused the tabloid of being “actively homophobic” for years.
An emotional Prince Harry criticized the publisher when he was in the box in January and accused the tabloid of making his wife Meghan’s life an “absolute misery”.
ANL countered that the evidence would prove it obtained its stories legitimately and that claims of the use of private investigators were “grasping at straws in the air”.
The publisher’s lawyer, Katrin Evans, suggested that for some of the Mail articles cited in the John and Furnish case, “a certain amount of information… had already been put into the public domain”.
The publisher’s lawyers have also suggested that the claimant was surrounded by a “hidden” group of friends who passed information to the media.
When asked about this, the singer answered candidly: “My friends don’t talk to the press, and that’s why they’re still my friends.”
In his written witness statement, Mr John said: “I have dedicated my life to my music, but that doesn’t mean that highly personal things, which I have the right to deal with privately, are fair game.
She said, “It has been really painful for David and I to watch our case unfold, when Zachary was targeted when he was born, David and I were targeted, I was targeted when I was sick and unwell.”
published – February 06, 2026 07:59 PM IST