Sir Elton John will actually meet Vladmir Putin after phone prank
By Will Stroude
Well, there’s been some twists and turns getting there, but a spokesperson for Russian president Vladimir Putin says he will indeed meet with Sir Elton John.
Last week, the musical icon revealed that he wanted to sit down with the Russian president to discuss the treatment of the county’s LGBT community – a request that was seemingly fulfilled just a day later when he announced that Mr Putin had been in touch.
The waters were muddied somewhat when The Kremlin later denied that Mr Putin had made the call, and it soon emerged that the call the 68-year-old received was in fact by two Russia TV pranksters Vladimir Krasnov and Alexei Stolyarov, also known as ‘Vova and Lexus’, one of whom pretended to be the president, while the other acted as his ‘translator’.
The Rocket Man singer responded to news of the hoax in typically dignified manner, insisting in a post on his Instagram page that he was “happy to be pranked” if it keeps the issue of LGBT repression in Russia on the media agenda.
That tactic appears to have paid off, and accroding to ITV, Reuters news agency reports that Mr Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov has confirmed a phone call has indeed taken place since the incident and that the Russian leader had asked Sir Elton not to be offended by the earlier prank.
Peskov added that a face-to-face meeting between the pair would take place when the two men’s timetables coincided.
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