14 DAY TRIAL // Sir Elton John is convinced that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally reached out to him on the phone, to discuss the possibility of making things a bit easier for the LGBT community in Russia. He is actually thrilled about the prospect of meeting Putin face to face to discuss this, even though two TV hosts have already stepped forward to say they had pranked him.
The whole conundrum has turned the singer into the butt of all jokes online, especially on social media, where he posted the Instagram post available below. As of the time of writing, it’s still online.
“Putin” called Elton John to discuss gay rights
As you can see, Sir Elton John reached out to Putin on social media to thank him for the phone call in which they discussed gay rights in Russia, and to say that he was thrilled they would meet face to face to talk more on the topic.
Putin is anti-gay by excellence, a stance he maintains despite international outcry to the measures he takes. Russia has a law that bans “gay propaganda” among children, and Putin himself equated being gay to being a pedophile.
When Putin warned gays to not come to Russia for the 2013 Winter Olympics, Elton John was one of the many openly gay celebrities to publicly criticize him for it. With all that, it seems that he never gave up on the hope that Putin might come around, which is obvious from his eagerness to believe that the phone call he got was the real thing.
It was a prank
Dmitry Pskov, Putin’s spokesman, has issued several denials regarding the so-called phone call, saying the President did not have any plans to reach out to the singer. In other words, Putin remains anti-gay no matter the public pressure from other countries, politicians or celebrities.
The Telegraph reports that the whole thing was a hoax, put together by Vladimir Krasnov and Alexei Stolyarov of “Vova and Lexus,” who thought it would be funny to see if they could convince Elton John that Putin was at the other end of the line.
“We think that Putin is unlikely to want at least in the near future to meet with him and to call, but it turned out that Elton John was waiting for that call, so immediately believed in the reality of a conversation with the people that we represent,” they told the Russian press. “He said: ‘Thank you. You made my day. This day, and the conversation was the most wonderful and beautiful in my life’.”
Since Elton John’s original post is still online, he and his people still believe he spoke to Putin. If this was really a prank call, an audio should emerge in the following days, which is probably when the singer will take down the Instagram post.
Thank-you to President Vladimir Putin for reaching out and speaking via telephone with me today. I look to forward to meeting with you face-to-face to discuss LGBT equality in Russia. @president_vladimir_putin @ejaf #lgbt #lgbtrights #ShareTheLove A photo posted by Elton John (@eltonjohn) on Sep 14, 2015 at 8:11am PDT
[Updated, September 17, later]: That didn't take long! The audio of the prank call has emerged online: you can check it out in full below.
