Legendary music producer David Foster is out here proving that who needs a StairMaster when you can just avoid elevators like they’re haunted?
The 75-year-old, who has won a casual 16 Grammys (no big deal), recently spilled the tea on his extreme fear of elevators. And let’s just say—his calves are probably stronger than his discography.
“I try to go to the gym three times a week,” he told The Wall Street Journal. “Also, I literally never take an elevator. It’s claustrophobia. I’ve been in an elevator five times in my adult life. Three of those were for surgeries. I was drugged, so it was OK.”
Yes, you read that right. Hospitals had to sedate him just to get him on an elevator.
The Time Pavarotti Kidnapped Him (Musically)
Of the two non-medical occasions where Foster braved an elevator, one involved the late, great opera legend Luciano Pavarotti—and it sounds like an actual fever dream.
“I was at Pavarotti’s 20th-floor place in New York, working with him and Celine Dion on a duet,” he recalled. “The wine’s flowing, everyone’s drinking, and I’m like, ‘Alright, I’m out. Time to take the stairs.’”
That’s when the 400-pound opera legend shut down that nonsense.
“Pavarotti looks at me and goes, ‘No. Today you take the elevator.’ Then he pulls me onto his lap in this tiny little elevator chair. And as we go down, he belts out Ave Maria right into my face—at full Pavarotti volume.”
Imagine trying to be terrified of an elevator while an Italian opera god is serenading you at point-blank range.
65 Flights? No Problem.
If that wasn’t wild enough, Foster casually mentioned that he once climbed 65 flights of stairs to go for a swim at Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands.
“I was in Singapore filming Asia’s Got Talent and wanted to hit the pool. So, I walked up 65 floors.”
That’s not a workout. That’s a spiritual journey.
David Foster may be afraid of elevators, but one thing’s for sure—his quads are fearless.
