New play dramatizes Elton John’s battle against a British tabloid

This year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival — the world’s largest performing arts festival — will feature a play inspired by an unusual subject: a legal battle between Elton John and a British tabloid that printed a scandalous fake story about him.

The play by Henry Naylor is called Monstering the Rocketman and tells the story of how Elton won Britain’s biggest-ever libel settlement. In 1987, The Sun Editor Kevin MacKenzie had the paper run a story about Elton having a sexual relationship with a male prostitute. The story wasn’t true, and Elton had proof of the lie.

However, MacKenzie refused to back down and began what Naylor calls a “massive campaign of media harassment” against Elton with multiple false stories, including one that accused the singer of mistreating his dogs.

The play’s description says that in the process of Elton filing libel suits against the paper, he “faces punch-ups, gangsters, bugged phone calls, a 10-million pound divorce suit and a pair of Devil Dogs. Will he remain still standing? Or will The Sun go down on him?”

Elton eventually won 1 million pounds in an out-of-court settlement — the equivalent of 3.4 million pounds in today’s money — as well as a front-page apology from The Sun. In an article for Must-See Theatre, Naylor writes, “I believe the battle was a defining moment in British history, for not only did it result in the country’s largest libel settlement but it also changed the British press forever.”

Monstering the Rocketman runs from July 30 to Aug. 24.