In order to celebrate the live of tragic AIDS victim Ryan White, Elton John will headline a charity concert at Butler University in Indiana.
Ryan got the disease from a contaminated blood transfusion in 1990 and he died at just 18-years-old. Elton held a bedside vigil for him in the last week of his life and even credited the teen for getting the singer back on track.
John said:
“Every time I stopped taking drugs, after a period of time I’d go back. It got worse and worse… What finally opened my eyes was Ryan White.
I read in a magazine that Ryan was not allowed to go to school because he had AIDS. Firebombs were being put in his family’s letter box. I was enraged. I helped the White family move. I spent the last week of Ryan’s life in 1990 with him in an Indianapolis hospital.
There was something wonderful in this family – they were losing their son, yet they were still able to forgive the hatred of others. I thought, ‘Look at me. I have everything I want, and I complain about a hotel room because I don’t like the wallpaper? What happened to me? I was a nice, decent boy, and now I’m a self-obsessed drug addict.’ So I got sober.”
All proceeds from the April 28th concert will be given to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum and Elton John’s AIDS foundation.
Amazing.
[Image via WENN.]
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