It's Captain Fantastic to the rescue.

Elton John and Eminem held hands, hugged, and performed the latter's song "Stan" together during the 2001 Grammy Awards ceremony. That night, Elton wore a shiny pink-and-lime suit; Eminem wore a T-shirt, jeans, and his trademark backwards baseball cap. Some saw the performance as a major evolutionary step for the famous rapper, whose homophobic lyrics had come under fire from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and other organizations.

Now the older musician is helping the younger one to take yet another evolutionary step, as reported in various media sources today: Elton is helping Eminem break a drug habit.

"I've been helping Eminem over the last 18 months and he's doing brilliantly," Elton told a BBC interviewer on Saturday. "I'm there if people want my help. If people ask for help you tell them where to go but there's no point advising people if they don't want to do it." His own struggles with substance abuse have been well-documented; the turning point was a 1990 stint in a Chicago treatment center, where he took the first steps toward controlling his issues with drugs, alcohol, and bulimia. As he told reporters after becoming sober, behind the flamboyant figure onstage was a tormented soul who stayed up for days on end during cocaine binges. In a 1992 LA Times interview, the singer described his former self -- his addicted self -- as "angry and bitter and sad ... physically ugly, spiritually ugly, a slob, a pig." A meeting with the bloated, addicted Elvis Presley near the end of the superstar's life had left Elton in tears, fearing a similar fate but, as yet, feeling unable to change.