Elton John and Brandi Carlile may have been born decades apart, but their friendship is one for the ages. After meeting nearly two decades ago, the two Grammy-winning musicians have become so close, they consider each other family.
Performing together on Saturday Night Live as the April 5 episode’s Musical Guests, the duo have collaborated a number of times over the years, but most recently on their 2025 album, Who Believes in Angels? And when they’re not in the studio, they’re just hanging out as best buds.
From performing together in front of massive audiences to vacationing with their families, John, 78, and Carlile, 43, have grown very close through the years. In one photo shared on Instagram featuring John, his husband David Furnish, and Carlile with her wife Catherine Shepherd, the “Broken Horses” singer described the group as her “gorgeously dysfunctional found family.”
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So how exactly did this beautiful friendship start? Read on for all the touching details.
The two musicians first met in 2009 after Carlile wrote John a letter asking him to play piano on her song “Caroline” on her album Give Up the Ghost.
“I wrote him a letter,” Carlile explained during a December 2024 appearance on The Late Show, describing herself as a “massive, massive Elton John disciple from a young age.” Carlile had just come to California and got a record deal when she decided to reach out to her music idol. “I asked him if he would come and play piano on one of my songs,” she recalled. “And in true Elton fashion, he agreed to do that outrageous thing.”
While Carlile had introduced herself in the letter, the “Tiny Dancer” singer said he’d already known her from her music and quickly invited her to Las Vegas, where he was doing a residency at the Colosseum at the time. “I knew who she was,” John told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show in April 2025. “I phoned her and I said, ‘Yeah, of course … if you can come to Las Vegas.’”
Once she was there, John sang and played piano on Carlile’s record — and their friendship instantly blossomed. “The minute she arrived in the studio, I fell in love with her. And I fell in love with her talent, her voice,” John said on The Tonight Show. “But more than that, I fell in love with the person. We’ve become firm friends and we’re like family.”
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Brandi Carlile first discovered Elton John’s music in the ‘90s
Carlile shared on The Tonight Show that John and his longtime songwriting partner, lyricist Bernie Taupin, are the reason she “ever touched an instrument or wrote a song.”
“I was so inspired by them from the time I was 11 years old,” she told Fallon. And the song that catapulted that inspiration was the duo’s 1969 ballad “Skyline Pigeon.”
“I went to the King County Library and I borrowed, kept, borrowed a CD called Here And There, it was like a live recording,” she shared on The Late Show. “The music changed my whole worldview. I’d only been, you know, allowed to really listen to country music up to that point and I discovered Elton in a book report [in 1991 or 1992] … I became a fanatic within three months. I had a Casio keyboard and I was determined to learn to write songs.”
Elton John has described his friendship with Brandi Carlile as “serendipity”
“It was a serendipity moment,” John said on The Tonight Show about how his friendship with Carlile started from a letter. Indeed, on his website, John said they were destined to meet: “The first time I met Brandi, we clicked immediately. It was like we were a long-lost brother or sister or something. It was just kismet.”
John has also compared their meet-cue in 2009 to how he and Taupin first crossed paths in the 1960’s. “It’s like if I hadn’t gone and answered that advert for songwriters and singers, I would have never met Bernie,” he said on The Late Show. “If she hadn’t written that letter, she might not have met me. It’s been one of the greatest joys in my life to have a relationship with her.”
Elton John and Brandi Carlile’s album Who Believes in Angels? was completed in 20 days
John shared on The Tonight Show that ever since he first met Carlile, he’s “always wanted to record with her.” And they did just that with their album, Who Believes in Angels?, released on April 4, 2025.
They got to work in 2023, just after John finished his final show on his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, and walked into the studio with nothing planned. “That was a requirement of Elton’s,” Carlile told Fallon about the album that Taupin and producer Andrew Watt also worked on with them.
“Towards the beginning of the sessions, we were very testy because I was very tired, I was exhausted, I was so plagued with doubt and nerves and worry. I knew how I wanted it to sound, but you can’t plan that,” John added. “I wanted it to sound so great for her — and for me.”
But once they got the first track of the album recorded — ”The Rose of Laura Nyro” — John said the rest of it just fell into place. “It just took shape,” he recalled. “It was like a runaway train, and 20 days later we had the album finished and four extra songs. Not bad.”
