Elton John has broken his silence about the closing of his multimillion-dollar musical Tammy Faye just days after it opened on Broadway.
The EGOT winner, 77, opened up about the rapid cancellation of the Broadway musical, based on the life of televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, following its opening on November 14. In an interview with Time magazine, which named John its “Icon of the Year,” the composer said it’s simply par for the course in the name of showbiz.
“It’s a shame for everyone who put so much work in it,” he said. “But that’s what happens when you take a chance.”
John, who was joined by his husband David Furnish for an interview on the evening after opening night, suggested that the failure had something to do with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump securing a second term in the White House days before the musical opened.
“It’s a fairly political piece of work,” the British singer said. “And with that you have to press somebody’s buttons. The buttons we pressed last night with the critics weren’t the right ones.”
In the weekend after Tammy Faye’s opening, the musical drew a gross of $374,371 with an overall attendance of 5,732 at 63 percent of capacity. It closed with a final performance at New York’s Palace Theatre on December 8, after just 24 previews and 29 regular performances.
According to Time, Tammy Faye cost a whopping $22 million to produce.
The reviews were immediately scathing, with the New York Post calling it “a disaster of biblical proportions.”
Meanwhile, Variety wrote: “Tammy finally comes to terms with her all-too-mortal sins and sees the light of a presumably forgiving God. Audiences may not be so charitably inclined.”
The show featured music by John, lyrics by Jake Shears of the Scissor Sisters, and a book by Dear England playwright James Graham. It starred Katie Brayben in the title role, with Christian Borle as her husband Jim Bakker and Michael Cerveris as fellow televangelist Jerry Falwell.
The production previously ran in London from October to December 2022. Brayben originated the role of Tammy Faye, with Andrew Rannells as her husband and Zubin Varla as Falwell.
Tammy Faye isn’t the only Broadway musical that John has recently played a role in producing. The “Rocket Man” singer wrote the score for the new West End musical The Devil Wears Prada, starring Vanessa Williams.
At a gala performance of The Devil Wears Prada on December 1 — staged to raise funds for the Elton John Aids Foundation — John spoke about his ongoing health issues after revealing that he had lost vision in his right eye.
“I haven’t been able to come to many of the previews because, as you know, I have lost my eyesight. So it’s hard for me to see it. But I love to hear it and boy it sounded good tonight,” he said while onstage.
In September, the “Yellow Brick Road” singer shared he was slowly healing from a “severe eye infection” that had left his vision impaired. He later explained in an interview with Good Morning America that he and his doctors are “taking an initiative” to treat his eye problems, but maintained that “it’s never fortunate for anything like this to happen.”
