No matter how famous of a celebrity you become, sometimes a snippy insult can resonate deeply with your emotions. Your anger might inspire you to take actions you wouldn’t normally pursue, even if it means fatal consequences. According to one of his of former bodyguards, David Gest became so enraged by a comment made by Elton John that he hired someone to kill the singer as retaliation.
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Imad Handi, 39, told The Sun that back in 2003, the late Gest paid a hitman ยฃ20,000 to kill the singer for comments he made about the nature of his marriage to Liza Minnelli.
Gest married Minnelli in 2002, causing John to make the joke that, as a wedding present, he wanted to buy Minnelli a “heterosexual husband.” The comment left Gest so angered, according to Handi, he pursued assassination.
Handi revealed, “David flew into a rage and yelled, ‘I’m going to kill that motherf**ker. He’s a dead man.’”
Despite how angry the comment made Gest, Handi believes there was a deeper reason for why it upset him so much. “I think he was so angry because Elton rumbled who he really was,” confessed Handi.
The nefarious deed was set to take place at one of John’s concerts in California in January of 2003, but Handi managed to talk Gest out of following through with the transaction.
A year after their wedding, Gest and Minnelli separated.
During Imad’s revealing interview, he explained that he believed Gest to be bisexual, having been interested in Simon Cowell.
In addition to his sexual proclivities, Imad revealed in the interview that, at its peak, Gest’s drug habit resulted in him spending ยฃ500 on cocaine each day. The celebrity would often party with Amy Winehouse, despite imbibing in so many substances he’d end up in a hospital.
Imad explained just how different Gest’s public persona was from his private one, detailing, “He dealt drugs, took drugs on a massive scale, had sex with who he wanted, hid his sexuality, gambled for days on end and was nothing like the person on TV.”
Gest’s body was found in a hotel room in April of 2016, with authorities ruling the death “non-suspicious.” Imad admitted that he received a silent phone call from Gest days earlier, leading the bodyguard to believe that was Gest’s attempt to get help, in retrospect.
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[H/T Daily Mail]
