Career

The latest famous rock star to be a big fan of Jacinda Ardern

Ed Sheeran pops round for tea and scones, Pink arranges a play date with her - and now Elton John says he wants to BE Jacinda Ardern.

We know. She’s pretty awesome.

When Ed Sheeran is in town he pops round to her house for tea and scones).

When Pink is in Auckland she organises a play date with her and her daughter Neve.

So is it any surprise, then, to hear that Elton John wants to BE Jacinda Ardern?

Elton John has revealed that if he could be any woman alive, he’d be Jacinda Ardern.

The question was posed in an A-lister Q&A which Elton’s biographer published ahead of the release of The Rocket Man’s autobiography.

The biographer, a Guardian reporter, spent three years chronicling Elton John’s life and gave famous fans the opportunity to ask anything they’d ever wanted to know about Elton. Bob Dylan, Eminem, Ed Sheeran, Lenny Kravitz and Donatella Versace were among those who contributed questions.

Model-actor Cara Delevingne asked, “If you could be one woman alive and one woman from the past, who would you be?”

Elton replied, “It’s hard to pick someone from today, because there are so many candidates, but I think I’d choose Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand.

“She’s one of the few politicians that I respect and love – she’s got dignity and she’s humane. I think she’s doing a brilliant job.”

From the past, he said he would have loved to have been Elizabeth Taylor.

Maybe it’s because music is a little bit in her veins. Ardern used to moonlight as a DJ and spin tunes at local gigs.

And one of the first things Ardern and her partner Clarke Gayford bonded over when they met was their mutual love of Concord Dawn (“a fantastically awesome heavy New Zealand drum and bass outfit”, in Clarke’s words).

The PM famously gifted the Duke and Duchess of Sussex a Shapeshifter album during their 2018 tour of New Zealand.

And she loves a good music festival, having had attended a few Rhythm and Vines festivals in her time.

On a more serious note, Jacinda Ardern has made Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People List twice and was put forward for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for the way in which she responded to the Christchurch mosque attacks.

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Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Russell Crowe are also vocal fans of hers.

Of course, Russell Crowe was once a musician, having formed the band, Roman Antix, which later evolved into the Australian rock band 30 Odd Foot of Grunts.

See, there’s that musical thread coming through again.

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