He became a father for the first time little more than a month ago when his son Zachary was born.
Now Sir Elton John has spoken about his relationship with his own father, revealing that he was a disciplinarian who never watched the singer play a concert.
Sir Elton, who started playing the piano when he was just three and went on to attend the Royal Academy of Music, said his father Stanley Dwight had no interest in his budding career even though Dwight had also been a keen musician, having played the trumpet.
"You know, my father never came to hear me play. Not ever," said John, who was born Reginald Dwight.
"He was a tough and unemotional man. Hard. In the RAF.
"He was dismissive, disappointed and finally absent. I just wanted him to acknowledge what I'd done. But he never did."
Dwight, who died in 1992, had wanted his son to have a more conventional career and steered him towards banking. He then divorced John's mother, Sheila, when the singer was 15.
The 63-year-old said: "It wasn't that he didn't know how to relate to kids. He left us, remarried and had another family, and by all accounts was a great dad to them. It wasn't children, it was me."
John and his civil partner, David Furnish, 48, became parents to Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John through a surrogate mother on Christmas Day.
And although the star's extravagant spending is legendary, Furnish has said the couple are relying on friends' generosity for the newborn.
He said: "We haven't spent thousands on clothes and toys. All you need is a couple of babygros and a lot of muslin. Friends are being really great giving us hand-me-down stuff."
Despite John's estimated £185 million (Dh1 billion) fortune the pair are determined they will not spoil the boy.
"We don't want him to have a sense of entitlement," said Furnish.
He also said the child had been born prematurely and the couple had to rush to the hospital in Los Angeles to be present at the birth. "Our doctor told us not to worry and went on holiday and then the contractions started on the 24th and we rushed to the hospital."
After the birth John and Furnish both stripped to the waist and took part in "skin-to-skin" contact with the newborn. "It was the happiest moment of our lives," Furnish told the Sunday Times magazine.
He also revealed the names they want Zachary to call them. "Elton is going to be Daddy and I'll be Papa," he said.
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