🎵 2022-03-28 20:41:55 – Paris/France.
Brandi Carlile attends the 30th Annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Awards Viewing Party on March 27, 2022 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo: Amy Sussman/Getty Images for Elton John AIDS Foundation)
"I don't take being here lightly," Brandi Carlile said at the 30th Annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Oscar Viewing Party on Sunday night. Playing the star-studded gala, which raised $8,6 million for the Foundation's work to end AIDS, was a loopy moment for the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter, as she told the crowd she discovered Elton John's music after doing a book report aged 11 about Ryan White - a boy with hemophilia who contracted HIV through a blood transfusion and became an activist of AIDS and a dear friend of John's, before he died of AIDS in 1990.
After joking that being on stage in the event's pink tent in the middle of West Hollywood Park felt like "playing a gig in a real vagina," Carlile got serious. “I had never heard Elton John's music before. I was really only allowed to listen to country and western music. I lived, and still live, in a conservative town,” she said of her childhood. "And I did a book report [on the autobiography Ryan White: My Own Story]. I think it was around 6th grade, about a young guy who had passed away called Ryan White…. And that was my first education about something like HIV or AIDS. It was a huge deal that shaped my view of the world.
"At the end of this book, this young boy befriended a man named Elton John, whose music I had never heard of, and this Elton John guy played a song at Ryan's funeral titled “Skyline Pigeon”. I went home and told my parents that I had heard about HIV and AIDS and told them about the stigma and all the pain people were going through. And I asked them if they could take me to the King County Library to listen to a CD. that I could check out and borrow and hear Elton sing for the first time.
"So turning 40 and standing here all these years later, having the truly solemn and incredibly beautiful opportunity to support the Elton John AIDS Foundation, is something that I can't really describe to you, because it's shaped the how I travel the world as an artist," concluded Carlile. “I just want you to know that I don't take being here lightly. »
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Ryan White and Elton John in the 1980s. (Photo: L. Cohen/WireImage)
During his friendship with Ryan White, at a time when people with AIDS were misunderstood, ostracized and reviled, Elton John showered the White family with kindness. He took them on a private tour of Disneyland, invited them to concerts, and even gave them money for a down payment on the house and a college fund for White's sister. John was at White's side when White died aged 18, and he also performed at White's memorial. John honored Ryan White's legacy by founding the Elton John AIDS Foundation in 1992.
While Elton John was not present at this year's EJAF gala due to a conflicting concert date during his rescheduled Yellow Brick Road farewell tour, he joined via satellite from Nebraska , to treat the crowd to a special performance of “Your Song” and “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” John's presence was also felt when Carlile and rising glam-pop star Jake Wesley Rogers performed a duet on John's classic "Rocket Man," accompanied by a band including Shooter Jennings and Matt Chamberlain.
David Furnish is seen via video at the Elton John: Farewell Yellow Brick Road Concert in Lincoln, NE during the 30th Annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Awards Viewing Party on March 27, 2022 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo: Jason Squires/Getty Images for Elton John AIDS Foundation)
The 30th Annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Oscars Viewing Party was hosted by Lady Gaga, Billy Porter and Eric McCormack, along with EJAF President and Elton John's husband, David Furnish. Participants included Demi Lovato, Kevin Costner, Adam Lambert, Miguel, Zooey Deschanel, Amber Riley, Casey Affleck, Saweetie, Donatella Versace, Patricia and Rosanna Arquette, Christina Hendricks, Lucy Hale, Heidi Klum, Liam Payne, Beck, Tinashe, Raven-Symone, RuPaul's Drag Race stars Violet Chachki and Gottmik, Sharon Osbourne and Jane Seymour.
Sunday evening marked the Foundation's return to live events, having skipped 2021 due to coronavirus concerns. Since the gala's inception in 1992, John's annual Oscar party has raised more than $86 million for his vital programs.
Billy Porter, Eric McCormack, EJAF President David Furnish and Lady Gaga attend the 30th Annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Awards Viewing Party on March 27, 2022 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo: Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Elton John AIDS Foundation)
Lady Gaga, Brandi Carlile and Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John attend the 30th Annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Awards Viewing Party on March 27, 2022 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo: Amy Sussman/Getty Images for Elton John AIDS Foundation)
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