Elton John dedicated a song to longtime friend Elizabeth Taylor at his Pennsylvania concert Wednesday night.
“Today I lost a friend and you lost a hero named Elizabeth Taylor. She was not just a movie star, although she was a huge movie star and there will never be anyone like her again … She was without a doubt one of the greatest people I’ve ever met in my life,” John told the audience in Pittsburgh’s Consol Energy Center.
PHOTOS: Elizabeth Taylor’s life in pictures
“She stood up when no one was prepared to stand up and be counted against AIDS,” continued John, who grew close to the two-time Oscar winner over their shared interest in raising money for the disease.
“She supported everybody in that with 1,000 percent of her body and her fiber,” added John. “But most of all she loved people. She fought for the underdog. She was an incredible woman and I was privileged to have known her.”
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“God bless you, Elizabeth. God knows how we’re going to replace you. This is for you and your beautiful memory and for all the people you helped and saved,” he went on before launching into “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.”
John also released “Candle In the Wind” in 1973 to pay tribute Marilyn Monroe, and re-released it in 1997 for Princess Diana.
Taylor died Wednesday at 79 from congestive heart failure; read more Hollywood tributes to the two-time Oscar winner.
