Elton John is healing after a health scare that left him partially blind, he told fans on Tuesday.
In a statement posted to Instagram, the 77-year-old singer-songwriter explained that he’d spent the summer battling “a severe eye infection.” He did not say how he contracted it or share further details about the infection, but added that he’d been left “with only limited vision in one eye.
“I am healing, but it’s an extremely slow process and it will take some time before sight returns to the impacted eye,” he continued. “I am so grateful for the excellent team of doctors and nurses and my family, who have taken such good care of me over the last several weeks.
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“I have been quietly spending the summer recuperating at home, and am feeling positive about the progress I have made in my healing and recovery so far.”
Friends and well-wishers were quick to flood his comments with messages of support and love.
“Sending our love and support your way,” tennis superstar Billie Jean King wrote. “Feel better soon, friend.”
“Sending you so much love Elton! Feel better soon. Love you,” the fashion designer Donatella Versace said.
Carnie Wilson, one-third of the pop trio Wilson Phillips and the daughter of Beach Boys frontman Brian Wilson, told John that she and her father had watched one of his concerts together on Monday. “He was loving Bennie And The Jets,” she added. (Brian was diagnosed with dementia and placed in a conservatorship earlier this year, with Carnie and her sister consulting on his healthcare decisions.)
The announcement comes three days before the premiere of his new documentary, Elton John: Never Too Late, at the Toronto International Film Festival. A spokesperson told Variety on Tuesday that the knighted singer still plans to be in attendance.
John is effectively retired from the road, having played his final tour show at the Glastonbury Festival last June before an estimated 120,000 people. He has made a number of one-off benefit appearances since, and is expected to descend on Los Angeles next month for a cancer gala.
He underwent double knee replacement surgery earlier this year. “By the time the summer rolls around, he’ll have two brand new spanking knees,” his husband, David Furnish, told The Sun in March. “I think you’ll see him breakdancing down the carpet next year.”
