Elton John said he asked his surgeon to keep his removed kneecaps after undergoing double knee replacement and later commissioned jeweler Theo Fennell to turn them into gold-plated pieces, a process the pair described in the World Gold Council short film "Touched By Gold."
In the film, John, 78, and Fennell explain how they preserved and prepared the bones before incorporating them into jewelry. "When I had my kneecaps removed, the left one first and then the right, I asked my surgeon if I could keep the kneecaps, which he was rather startled about — then I rang you," John tells Fennell. Fennell said they "baked them" to dry them out, likening the raw texture to pumice stone before coating the bones with acetate and polishing and plating them in gold.
Fennell displayed a gold-plated necklace made from one of John’s kneecaps; the singer identified the pendant as "my right patella." John said his surgeon told him he had "the worst knees he’s ever operated on," and that one kneecap had a hole "that looks a bit like an old artifact from Egypt." Fennell said he designed the necklace chain to echo bone, adding he thought it would be "more fun to have a necklace that reflected the thing at the end of it."
The pair said the back of the necklace bears a Latin inscription that translates as "I will no longer bow to any man," a detail Fennell emphasized in the film. Fennell described the finished pieces as talismanic and likened them to a reliquary: "In 1,000 years, as it says here, this will be Elton John’s kneecap. How many people will believe that? I don’t know. It’ll be sort of like a reliquary."
A smaller brooch made from John’s left kneecap also appears in the film. Fennell said the left patella’s smaller size limited what could be done with it, calling it "an incredibly difficult job to get the gold following the shape of something quite as unusual." John said of both items, "I honestly think these are timeless pieces that will last for centuries."
John, who had a double knee replacement last year, drew attention when he wore the right-patella necklace to the U.K. premiere of his documentary "Never Too Late" in October 2024. He has publicly discussed a series of medical procedures in recent years, telling an audience at the New York Film Festival that "there’s not much of me left" and listing removed organs and joint replacements.
The World Gold Council produced "Touched By Gold" as a short documentary exploring personal and inventive uses of gold. In the film, the conversion of John’s kneecaps into jewelry is presented alongside commentary from the designer about craft and preservation. The film and the pieces prompted discussion about the boundaries of memorial, adornment and the ways public figures reshape their own memorabilia.
John’s decision to keep and repurpose his bones follows a long history of artists, collectors and designers turning personal artifacts into objects meant to endure. He has continued to perform and promote projects while managing health challenges, and the new film adds a personal, literal coda to the story of his knee surgeries.