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The year: 1993. The host: Elton John. The dinner-party guests: Sylvester Stallone, Richard Gere, Princess Diana, and some other rich people. Enter stage right: a duel of the heart! As relayed in a new excerpt from John’s upcoming memoir, a party he threw at his British manse quickly took a turn to the testosterone thanks to Gere’s and Stallone’s behavior, who were both, apparently, hell-bent on seducing a newly single Lady Di upon their arrival. (She and Prince Charles divorced the year prior.) “The most peculiar scene developed. Straightaway, Richard Gere and Diana seemed very taken with each other,” John recalled in his memoir. “They ended up sitting in front of the fireplace together, locked in rapt conversation. Judging by the kind of looks he kept shooting them, Diana and Richard Gere’s newly blossoming friendship was not going down well with Sylvester Stallone at all.”

An hour or so went by like this, until all of the guests were corralled to eat at the dinner table. However, Stallone and Gere were nowhere to be found, so John’s now-husband, David Furnish, went looking for them. “It transpired that he’d discovered Sylvester Stallone and Richard Gere in the corridor, squaring up to each other, apparently about to settle their differences over Diana by having a fist-fight,” John writes. “After dinner, Diana and Richard Gere resumed their position together in front of the fire, and Sylvester stormed off home.” Stallone, really, was not pleased!

“I never would have come,” he snapped, as David and I showed him to the door, “if I’d known Prince f***in’ Charming was gonna be here.” Then he added: “If I’d wanted her, I would’ve taken her!” We managed to wait until his car was out of sight before we started laughing. Back in our living room, Diana and Richard Gere were still gazing raptly at each other. She seemed completely unruffled.

And so he squandered his chance to be Harry and William’s new stepfather.