Elton John says ‘Tammy Faye’ musical bombed because it was too political
Elton John is blaming politics for the failure of his musical “Tammy Faye.”
The EGOT winner, 78, spoke about the pricey show that he produced having a short-lived run on Broadway in an interview with The Sunday Times published Friday.
“We put out two musicals recently, one a huge flop in America and the other a huge hit in England,” John said, referring to “Tammy Faye” and “The Devil Wears Prada.”
“‘Tammy Faye’ came out during the U.S. election, and it’s all about how the integration of church and state ruined America, which Ronald Reagan did,” he explained. “It was too political for America. They don’t really get irony.”
“Tammy Faye” tells the story of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, the popular 1970s and ‘80s televangelists who shook up religious TV with upbeat prayer, inspirational interviews and variety acts. One plotline of the musical concerns how the rise of TV preachers helped Ronald Reagan win the presidency.
The production debuted at the West End in London in 2022, where it won two Laurence Olivier Awards.
The Broadway show, which was reportedly capitalized at $25 million, opened on Broadway on Nov. 14, 2024 at the Palace Theatre. It shut down just a few weeks later.
In a one-star review, The Post’s Johnny Oleksinski said John’s score was made up of “Saltine-cracker songs that are forgotten the moment the audience applauds.”
The review added, “Go in cold, and you’ll leave with no idea about how famous Jim and Tammy were or why you’ve just sat through a musical about them.”
A few days after the show closed, Elton seemed to blame Donald Trump for the epic failure.
“It’s a fairly political piece of work,” he said in an interview with Time magazine in December. “And with that you have to press somebody’s buttons. The buttons we pressed last night with the critics weren’t the right ones.”
John previously told The Hollywood Reporter that he was “always incredibly fascinated” by Tammy Faye Bakker, “so when we got the chance to write the musical, I jumped at it, because I love interesting people like that who have had great success and then been banished and lost everything, and then come back because of their faith and because of their belief, and turn the tables.”
John’s hits on Broadway include the Tony Award-winning “The Lion King” and “Billy Elliot: The Musical.”
His “The Devil Wears Prada” show, based on the 2006 film starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway, opened in London in December to more scathing reviews.
In another one-star review, The Post called “Prada” “a dud about duds” and “a haute mess.”
