Elton John calls out Vladimir Putin for censorship of biopic

Elton John called out Russian President Vladimir Putin after a Russian media company censored several scenes from his biopic and “removing all references to my finding true happiness,” Deadline reported.

In a letter released by John’s publicist, the singer, who is gay, said he was “deeply upset” when he read Putin’s recent interview with the Financial Times.

{mosads}“I strongly disagree with your view that pursuing policies that embrace multicultural and sexual diversity are obsolete in our societies,” John wrote. “I find duplicity in your comment that you want LGBT people to ‘be happy’ and that ‘we have no problem in that.’ ”

He added: “Yet Russian distributors chose to heavily censor my film ‘Rocketman’ by removing all references to my finding true happiness through my 25 year relationship with David and the raising of my two beautiful sons. This feels like hypocrisy to me.”

Putin told Financial Times “traditional values are more stable and more important for millions of people than this liberal idea, which, in my opinion, is really ceasing to exist.”

A Russian media company involved in the distribution of the new biopic reportedly cut several minutes from the movie that feature John’s homosexual relationships to avoid challenging the country’s anti-gay propaganda laws.

The film was shortened by about five minutes to remove romantic scenes between John and his partner, as well as captions that detailed his personal life after the film takes place.

John writes in the letter that he is “proud to live in a part of the world where our governments have evolved to recognise the universal human right to love whoever we want.”

“And I’m truly grateful for the advancement in government policies that have legally supported and allowed my marriage to David,” he continued. “This has brought us both tremendous comfort and happiness.”