Elton John Shows Off Bedazzled Kneecaps He Had Made Into Jewellery After Surgery

Sir Elton John has revealed he took his love of jewellery to strange new heights after undergoing knee surgery a couple of years ago.

The music legend underwent a double knee replacement in 2024, and later admitted that he had big plans for the parts that were removed.

“When I had my kneecaps removed, the left one first and then the right, I asked my surgeon if I could keep the kneecaps, which he was rather startled about,” he said in the short documentary Elton John – Touched By Gold last year.

From there, he contacted jeweller Theo Fennell and told him he could “do what you want with them”.

And be warned, this next part is probably not for the faint of heart.

“We had to bake them to dry them out,” Theo recalled. “Then they get raw like pumice stone, they’re very porous, and so we had to paint them with acetate and then just polish them up.”

Later in the clip, Sir Elton and Theo show off the bedazzled kneecaps, after they’d been turned into necklaces.

“My surgeon said I had the worst knees he’s ever operated on,” the Candle In The Wind singer remarked. “That hole was actually in my kneecap. It looks a bit like an old artefact from Egypt.”

In recent years, Sir Elton – who retired from live touring in 2023, just weeks after his headlining performance at Glastonbury – has spoken candidly about a number of health issues he’s been faced with.

Back in 2017, he underwent surgical treatment after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.

More recently, he said that he has been left with severely limited vision after contracting an eye infection.

Despite these health issues, he has continued to work, and is up for a Grammy later this week for the album he and Brandi Carlile released last year.