In a recent interview with the Sunday Times (via the Daily Telegraph) Queen guitarist Brian May revealed new details on the legendary Freddie Mercury’s final days. Mercury was a very quiet when it came to his personal life, protecting his privacy, even as he battled with AIDS.
One of the most shocking things to come out of the interview was May claiming the disease was taking Mercury down piece by piece, including his foot, which had to be amputated.
“The problem was actually his foot,” May told the Times. “Tragically there was very little left of it. Once, he showed it to us at dinner. And he said, ‘Oh Brian, I’m sorry I’ve upset you by showing you that.’ And I said, ‘I’m not upset, Freddie, except to realize you have to put up with all this terrible pain.’”
Mercury would shortly before the major advancements in AID research. May believes if it would have happened later, that he’d still be alive.
“He missed by just a few months. If it had been a bit later he would still have been with us, I’m sure,” said May. “You can’t do ‘what if,’ can you? You can’t go there because therein lies madness.”
Since this interview has come out, May has expressed his unhappiness with the interview, which was to originally focus on the Queen in 3-D retrospective book.
“This woman came into my house, pretended she was a fan and was going to write a nice piece about the book, as agreed; then went away and wrote this pathetic sensationalistic drivel. I’m angry and disgusted,” wrote May, pointing out that he’d agreed to give the Times the exclusive on the book, including any photos they wanted to run — and they “used just two of them, one of them reproduced not much bigger than a postage stamp; the rest of the piece illustrated with recycled ordinary snaps from God knows where.”
May didn’t single out any specific quotes that left him unsatisfied, but he did admit his anger towards what the headline described as “the debauchery of the Freddie Mercury years.” He also revealed that he will never give the Times “the time of day” from here on out, he assured fans that the book has nothing to do with the story presented by the article.
“I spent over two years fashioning this into the first book of its kind — EVER — a biography of a band from the inside illustrated with my own photographs — and in 3-D, with a fabulous viewer to bring them to life in three dimensions,” May insisted. “It’s honest, goes deep and is tasteful and dignified (I have been told!) but nobody reading this awful amateurish piece of journalistic opportunism would know it.”
