Photo of Elton John by Dena Flows
Reuters is reporting that the British government published the physical addresses of a number of celebrities online by accident, including those of Elton John and Olivia Newton-John.
The posting of the addresses occurred while publishing the New Year’s Honours 2020 recipients, which list the queen’s new knighthoods and damehoods. Newton-John is becoming a dame while Elton, who received knighthood more than 20 years ago, is being named a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for his services to music.
All together, there were more than 1,000 recipients on the list, and they all either had their home or work addresses posted online. This includes:
- Sam Mendes
- Jill Scott
- Clive Lloyd
The addresses were removed from the site as soon as the government became aware of the issue, and the BBC believes that they were only visible for about an hour.
The British Cabinet Office publicly apologized for the incident in a written statement.
They said, “We apologise to all those affected and are looking into how this happened. We have reported the matter to the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) and are contacting all those affected directly.”
Today, Newton-John is best known for her role in the film version of Grease. She also has had 15 Top 10 songs in the Billboard Hot 100 chart and has won four Grammy Awards along with ten American Music Awards.
Olivia Newton-John and Elton John actually have a number of interesting things in common in addition to having their addresses outed by the British government. They are not only both successful singers with similar surnames but they were also both born in England within a couple of years of each other.
The two as well collaborated on Newton-John’s 1988 song “The Rumour.”
Elton John made news a month ago when he signed a deal with Facebook to stream an interview of him.