#and sometimes when men use it cavalierly as if it’s just a funny little word it really grates me. like you don’t get it.

[lucydacusgirl]

‘Bitch isn’t a slur it’s just a curse word’ only if you don’t believe in misogyny lol.

[defyingthestars]

A mess of my unorganized, tinhatty ramblings about Taron and Richard and sexuality, under the cut...

Ok so the two questions I’ve been asked to address are whether I think Taron and Richard really hooked up or got together in some way, and whether I think Taron is queer, and I think the answer to both is yes. Taron has a lot of very close male friends. He is very very affectionate with them and has mentioned this many many times. He loves male affection, he loves a bromance, etc. He loves this talking point. Another talking point he loved during the press tour for Rocketman was that mutual friends of his and Richard’s had been “trying to set them up for years.” Ok, two things to that point. Whichever friends these were, they almost certainly knew that Richard is not straight, and secondly, I have never heard of two grown men whose friends wanted to “set them up” unless they wanted to set them up. Which I think is what they actually meant.

Taron has also talked about how he had a sexuality crisis as an adolescent. He had really bad anxiety and some of it, he thought, came from thinking he was gay. He says he went to therapy, and this therapist convinced him he wasn’t gay, he was just anxious. He tells this story so cavalierly that it’s almost a little shocking, in retrospect. Did he get inadvertently put through some sort of low-impact gay conversion therapy? Maybe. Whatever this therapist told him, he made it work in his head well enough, for a while. He found theatre. He found dressing up and getting attention for something he loved. He still has these very intense best friendships with the boys from Aberystwyth, one of whom I remain convinced he was in love with, and was in love with him. He eventually got movie roles, and on one of his movies, he met his girlfriend. He calls her his partner, which I know is a British thing, but somehow coming from him makes it sound as queer as I believe they are, so I love it.

So, this brings us to Rocketman. Taron has been effusive, glowing, adoring, enraptured, enamored and in every possible way ass over teakettle in love with Richard since they met. He like lost his mind a little bit...or found it. I think the process of making this movie took a lot out of both him and Richard, and changed them in various ways, permanently. 

I think they hooked up probably very early on. I think it became part of the process for him, and he convinced himself it was helping him build his character, really feel like Elton. I think they had a lot of drunken, messy nights. I think he either explained it to his girlfriend, or just told her about it, and she tolerated it during the filming, but I totally think she knew. Richard’s girlfriend at the time was, eh, whatever, (sorry, I don’t know anything about her honestly and she seems like a non-starter in his life, eek. Sorry sorry.) and I think they just...did stuff. I can’t speculate on specific acts because that’s what the fanfic is for. But they fooled around, and they enjoyed themselves. No one ever talks about what goes on on film sets, so they knew they were safe, no matter how much they maybe bled over. It worked, and the results for the film.....I mean fuck.

Absolutely this went on through the time Richard wrapped— Taron’s insta post from Richard’s last day is extremely telling, imo. He is being funny, but he’s also guarding his true feelings under the joke of how much he can’t stand him. Oh, because, that’s right, Taron caught fucking feelings. Surprise surprise. 

So, Richard wrapped, and I think he left for a minute and then came back to London. They went out the night before the Carpool Karaoke filming and got “blind drunk” (Taron’s own words) and something definitely went down that night because they were...how they were. 

You can just look at Richard’s reactions when Taron tells him he loves him, or how Taron calls him “old fruit.” They’re so fucking cute but they’re also way way over the top in that “heh heh we’ve kind of been fucking and now we have to remember how to act like best buds* again and I hope this isn’t going to get awkward later on” kind of way. They overdo* it, but it plays great for the show. The looks between them are genuine, but if you look carefully you can see Richard restrain, just a bit more than Taron.

Richard went right back to the US after this thing was done.

Taron wrapped the film. 

At some point within literally 2-3 days, two unbelievable things happened:

Taron broke up with Emily, and Richard met and somehow instantly became attached at the hip with Brandon.

Taron had a gay crisis when he was 13 and he had another one when he was about to turn 29. I am sure of it. He had fallen for Richard, and didn’t know any other way to handle it than to panic, dump his girlfriend and shoot his shot. 

Taron and Richard went to this weird Land Rover launch event thing in late November, literally looking like a couple. Taron had blown up his life and shaved his head. They had a weird energy between them— my theory is Taron tried to tell him at least some of this that night, and it backfired. Richard was either committed to this thing with Brandon, or just didn’t want to try or even think about dating Taron like that. They had fun, and Richard loves him, but “not in that way, mate.”

Sometime around Christmas, Elton and David invited them—Taron and Richard—over to dinner. I think this was some kind of Elton ambush. Richard had a boyfriend but it was the two of them who got invited — and they thought this was some kind of big holiday dinner party but it was just them, and two other gay couples in their 50’s, 60’s or 70’s. I think Elton wanted to make them see what was right there if they wanted it, or at the very least give them the Big Talk, if there was anything left unsaid, about life, and living it, and how to be happy and avoid cocaine. 

They didn’t get together any more, I don’t think. Richard didn’t come out but he didn’t go back in, either. He went on holiday with Brandon, and Taron had what I think of as his sad gay winter. He might have hooked up with other people, I have no idea. At some point he took out Elton’s earring, and then he got back with Emily.

By May, when he and Richard saw each other again in New York, enough time had passed that they had a beautiful, bittersweet comfort between them, imo. 

ouch and wow this photo hurts

there are a lot of feelings there. Richard doesn’t look like this with, like, anyone. also they’re drunk. 

now they’re just messy and wasted but something went down later because wow 

the Met Gala was my last big tinhatty night for them, I guess. I have seen somewhere that B might have been there at the afterparties? idk man but they were hanging out with some party kinda people and doing some party kinda stuff so anything could have happened to leave Taron looking like that. ***I was informed that he was not there and was in fact having a small fit and unfollowing Richard on instagram while this event and these photos were unfolding, so. yeah. 👀***

Then the film came out...the rest is history. Taron will still take a loving jab at Richard in an insta comment occasionally. I think it’s just his little way of dealing with that soft sting that hasn’t quite gone away. Richard probably never sees them. But if you ask Taron about Richard one day in many years he will still probably call him one of my very best friends.

*This kind of overkill of being best friends became Taron’s defense mechanism for the entire rest of the press tour. He proclaimed his love for Richard at every possible turn. He asked him to marry him. He told fans he’s at the front of the queue. He called him his best friend over and over. He was making sure, in every public place, that Richard knew that Taron still loved him regardless and there were no hard feelings for what happened between them and there never will be.