Before he and husband David Furnish had children, Sir Elton John was trying desperately to adopt a young Ukrainian baby. Multiple factors, including his sexuality, kept him and David from doing so.
While on Dua Lipa's At Your Service podcast, the singing legend spoke of meeting a 14-month-old, HIV-positive baby named Lev in 2009. Elton completely fell in love with the child.
"I was carrying this little boy around for hours. We had a press conference at the end and they said, 'You seem very fond of this little boy. Would you think of adopting him?' and I went, 'I'd actually love to!'" Elton recalled saying at the time.
There was a problem: The "Rocket Man" icon is gay and married to a man, which automatically made him ineligible to adopt in the European country.
"Because I was gay, I wasn't allowed to anyway," he told Dua.
That little boy, though, would still alter the course of Elton's life in a big way.
"After that happened, David said, 'Well, what do you think about having kids?' I always said no but this little boy was telling me something. He was saying 'C'mon you can be a dad,' and that's when we decided to have children, because of this little boy in Ukraine," Elton said.
Elton and David now share two children, Zachary, 11, and Elijah, 9.
Aside from the sexuality issue, Elton's age also prohibited him from adopting back then. News Hub reported that Ukrainian law requires an adoptive parent to be no older than 45. At the time, Elton was 62 years old. The law also requires parents to be married, but Ukraine does not recognize gay union as marriage, the report said.
"Elton John will not be able to adopt a Ukrainian child and if he files that request we will unfortunately deny it," Ukraine's Family, Youth and Sports Minister Yuriy Pavlenko said at the time. "The law is the same for everybody: for a president, for a minister, for Elton John."