Elton John reveals he secretly battled prostate cancer and was told he had just 24 hours to live

Sir Elton John has revealed he was just "24 hours from death" when he contracted a rare infection, 10 days after surgery for prostate cancer.

The 72-year-old music legend was diagnosed with the big C in 2017 and opted for surgery rather than chemotherapy because he did not want the disease "hanging over" his family.

Writing in his memoir, Me: Elton John, he said: "It was prostate cancer. I wasn’t as shocked at hearing the word ‘cancer’ as I might have been.

"They’d caught it early. The oncologist told me I had two options. One was surgery to remove my prostate.

"The other was a course of radiation and chemotherapy that meant I would have to go back to hospital dozens of times. I went straight for the surgery."

The 'I'm Still Standing' hitmaker said the surgery in Los Angeles was a "complete success" but he was later "24 hours from death" after contracting an infection in South America.

He spent 11 days in a London hospital and would reportedly lie awake at night "wondering if I was going to die."

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Elton wrote: "I was incredibly lucky - although, I have to say, I didn't feel terribly lucky at the time. I lay awake all night, wondering if I was going to die. In the hospital, alone at the dead of night, I'd prayed: Please don't let me die, please let me see my kids again, please give me a little longer."

"I was taken to King Edward VII's Hospital in London, where I had a scan. I was told that my condition was so serious, the hospital didn't have the equipment to cope with it. I had to be moved to the London Clinic. My last memory is of hyperventilating while they were trying to find a vein to give me an injection ... By 2.30pm, I was on the operating table, having more lymphatic fluid drained - this time from my diaphragm.

"For two days afterwards, I was in intensive care. When I came round, they told me I'd contracted a major infection in South America, and that they were treating it with massive intravenous doses of antibiotics. But the fever came back.

"They took a sample of the infection ... it was much more serious than they'd first realised. There were MRI scans and God knows how many other procedures. The doctors told David I was 24 hours away from death. If the South American tour had gone on for another day that would have been it: brown bread."

Once he was discharged from hospital, the father of two spent seven weeks "recuperating, learning to walk again."