We love Elton John - we love him for his music, his lovely relationship, his frequent bitch fights, and more often than not, his willingness to dress up like a total idiot and throw a crazy costume party.

More than once the Defamer Australia team has arrived at a "dress up" party as giant ants/Michelle & Ferret/drag queens, only to find everyone else in smart casual. In other words, Elton's our people!

Well, imagine our distress to see Sir Elt' is thinking it might be time to stop dressing up now that he's getting on a bit. Say it ain't so, O Lord Of Over-The-Top costuming!

He said: "As you get older, you change the way you think, the way you dress."

Some of Elton's most famous costumes include dressing up as Donald Duck at a Central Park, New York concert in 1980 and another huge feathered creation at a 1976 gig.

Eleven years ago, Elton dressed up as French monarch Louis XIV - a rumoured £40,000 costume - at his fancy dress 50th birthday party at the famed Hammersmith Palais.

For his 60th last year, Elton and 'husband' David Furnish dressed as a Russian general and a U.S. Marine captain for the 1940s-themed bash.

Elton told CNN host Larry King: "Well, I mean I couldn't wear some of my giant chicken outfits to the Oscar party, A, because I wouldn't fit in them anymore, and B, because, you know, I'm 61 years of age next month and I don't dress as flamboyant as I used to.

"I always liked to dress a little differently from other people but I'm nowhere near the fashion victim that I was a long time ago."

God, if there's one thing we thought we could always rely on, it was Elton dressing like a tit with too much cash to splash at his lavish costume parties.

If we can't say that's a constant in this fickle, fickle world, what can we say?