Michael Kovac/Getty Images for EJAFUPDATE: Dolce & Gabbana have released statements in response to the backlash. Read it here.
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Elton John, who shares two children with his husband, is fuming mad at Dolce & Gabbana's Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana over comments they made about same-sex parents and babies conceived via artificial insemination.
The top designers, who are also gay and were once a couple, had made their remarks to Italian magazine Panorama in an interview published last week.
"You are born to a mother and a father. Or at least that's how it should be," Dolce said. "I call children of chemistry, synthetic children. Rented wombs, semen chosen from a catalog."
"How dare you refer to my beautiful children as 'synthetic,'" John wrote in an Instagram post on Sunday. "And shame on you for wagging your judgmental little fingers at IVF - a miracle that has allowed legions of loving people, both straight and gay, to fulfill their dream of having children."
He then delivered an epic burn.
"Your archaic thinking is out of step with the times, just like your fashions," said the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter. I shall never wear Dolce and Gabbana ever again. #BoycottDolceGabbana."
John and Furnish, who tied the knot in England in December, are parents to sons Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John, 4, and Elijah Joseph Daniel Furnish-John, 1, who were both born to a surrogate mother.
Dolce and Gabbana have not commented publicly on their official social media pages. An Instagram account said to belong to Gabbana posted a message saying, "This is ️the real respect for a different opinion????"
The page also features screenshots of supportive comments made by readers, who have used the hashtag #BoycottJohn. Many people have been debating the issue of artificial insemination and IVF amongst themselves in comments posted on both his and John's accounts.
Many same-sex couples wishing to conceive a child using one parent's DNA, and possibly a surrogate, have used methods such as intrauterine insemination, in which sperm is transferred into a woman's uterus via a catheter, and in vitro insemination (IVF), in which fertilized embryos are created in a lab from eggs and sperm and then implanted. Both are also popular treatments among heterosexual couples suffering from infertility.
Many female celebrities, such as Céline Dion, Jaime King and Mariah Carey, had undergone IVF treatments before giving birth to their children. Miss World 2014 Rolene Strauss, born to a heterosexual couple, is a so-called "test tube" baby.
"I'm gay, I can not have a child," Dolce told Panorama. "Life has its natural course, there are things that must not be changed. And one of these is the family."
Gabbana added that "the family is not a fad. In it there is a supernatural sense of belonging," according to the U.K. newspaper The Telegraph.
Gabbana was also quoted as saying, "We oppose gay adoptions. The only family is the traditional one."
Dolce and Gabbana are launching a family-themed collection. Models carrying small children appeared on the runway at the Dolce & Gabbana fall / winter 2015 / 2016 show during Milan Fashion Week in Milan, Italy earlier this month.
The designers were a couple for 23 years before they ended their relationship in 2005, according to The Telegraph. The outlet reported that in 2006, Gabbana told an Italian magazine that he had asked a female friend to be a surrogate and carry his baby, adding that he did not want the child to have two gay parents.
"A child needs a mother and a father," he was quoted as saying. "I could not imagine my childhood without my mother. I also believe that it is cruel to take a baby away from its mother."