Bohemian Rhapsody: Freddie Mercury’s 28 most ludicrous anecdotes
We take a look at the Queen star’s life, which was too big to fit into Bohemian Rhapsody’s run time
“It would be so boring to be 70. I’ve lived a full life and if I’m dead tomorrow, I don’t give a damn.”
These words from Freddie Mercury – born Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar, 1946, dying aged 45 in 1991 – sum his life up pretty damn well. A shy man who became one of the world’s most electric frontmen as soon as he went on stage, Mercury contained multitudes. No wonder Rami Malek won a Golden Globe and Oscar for his performance as the singer: it’s hard not to give a compelling performance when you’re playing a fascinating person.
It would be impossible to fit all of him into a film such as Bohemian Rhapsody and so we gathered a few of our favourite Freddie Mercury facts together for those who want to know more about the Queen of Queens.
Shutterstock1/28At the age of eight he was sent off to a public school in India. He only saw his family annually and the chasm was filled with pop music. From there: London post-revolution, the Swinging Sixties, working as a life model and a caterer.
Rob Stothard2/28He was a keen stamp collector
Between the ages of 9 and 12, Freddie Mercury was a philatelist, collecting stamps including a range from Zanzibar and the UK, as well as British colonies of the time such as Aden (modern-day Yemen) and New Zealand, and Monaco. His collection has been owned by London’s Postal Museum since 1993 and was exhibited in 2016 alongside John Lennon’s stamp collection.
Mark and Colleen Hayward3/28He was raised a Zoroastrian
Freddie Mercury’s parents were Parsis – Indians of Persian descent who had historically fled modern-day Iran as Islam replaced Zoroastrianism as the dominant religion in the region. They moved to Zanzibar from Gujarat before Freddie was born and although he went to a Church of England primary school, he was a practising Zoroastrian at the time. He wasn’t particularly devout later in life, but when he died, almost all his belongings were burned in accordance with Zoroastrian teaching.
Shutterstock4/28He designed the logo featuring all the band members’ zodiac signs. And a phoenix. A phoenix is not one of their zodiac signs, but if you had to throw anything in it would probably be that.
Shutterstock5/28Freddie frequently performed with a mic “stick”: basically just the boom and the microphone detached from the stand. The legend goes that Freddie’s mic snapped once during a show and he preferred the new setup much more and decided to make it a thing.
Shutterstock6/28Freddie Mercury was never convinced he was a very good pianist but had a habit of composing songs with the instrument in odd positions. He had a piano as the headboard of his bed and, when inspired, would reach back and play what he’d heard in his dreams. There is also a story that he wrote “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” in the bath after a piano was brought to him. This is not the story that Freddie himself tells, but it’s not hard to believe why people might have thought it was true.
Shutterstock7/28Mercury once helped set up the equipment at a Bowie gig at his art college. Later, the two artists collaborated on “Under Pressure” – an incredibly tense bender of a session that caused some explosive confrontations between the two acts. Bowie, however, had a lot of respect for the artist: “Of all the more theatrical performers, Freddie took it further than the rest. He took it over the edge. And of course I always admire a man who wears tights!”
Shutterstock8/28Freddie Mercury’s love of his teeth (and consequent fear of dentistry) meant his appointments were few and far between, but one of them was responsible for a part of British punk history. Queen were booked to appear on Tonight With Bill Grundy in December 1976. When the band had to pull out for Mercury’s first dental appointment in 15 years, the Sex Pistols were brought on instead.
Theirs was not a happy relationship, though. Freddie loved a nickname and used to call Sid “Simon Ferocious”. There was also an occasion at Wessex Sound Studios in 1977 where Vicious quipped, “Have you succeeded in bringing ballet to the masses yet?” To which Mercury went over and physically threw him out of the studio.
Shutterstock9/28The distinctive smile of the Queen frontman was the product of having four extra teeth in the back. He refused to have them fixed, mainly because he feared it would in some way undo his vocal aptitude.
Shutterstock10/28According to comedian Cleo Rocos, she smuggled the Princess into the Royal Vauxhall Tavern alongside Freddie and comedian Kenny Everett in 1988. Better still? It was the product of the quartet all watching The Golden Girls together. They dragged her up in a camo jacket and leather cap and, apparently, nobody was any the wiser and she was able to just order a few drinks and have a night out in a gay bar.
Shutterstock11/28Freddie Mercury is said to have had a four-octave vocal range with a very unique tone. A study in 2016 could not confirm whether his range truly was that broad, but he was talented enough to be a baritone who could leap into a full tenor range when required, with a vibrato faster than Pavarotti’s. Researchers believe he may have played with something called subharmonics, something you see more in throat singers than rock stars.
Shutterstock12/28There were many women in Freddie Mercury’s life, whether they were collaborators such as the opera star Montserrat Caballé or lovers. While he is often celebrated as a gay frontman, others have argued for him being seen as bisexual. When he lived in Munich he shared his flat with the bombshell soft-porn actress Barbara Valentin (who appears in the “It’s A Hard Life” video). They were reportedly lovers and Valentin herself has described Mercury as “mostly gay”.
The woman most closely associated with Freddie, however, is Mary Austin, to whom he left half of his estate including his Kensington mansion. They first met in 1969, almost got married, but their relationship fell apart when he continued to sleep with men during their engagement.
“All my lovers asked me why they couldn’t replace Mary, but it’s simply impossible. The only friend I’ve got is Mary and I don’t want anybody else. To me, she was my common-law wife. To me, it was a marriage,” said Mercury.
“I lost my family, really, when Freddie died. He was everything to me, apart from my sons,” Austin said. “He was like no one I had met before.”
Shutterstock13/28All of Freddie’s close friends had female nicknames – Elton’s was “Sharon”. The two artists were both party animals, but even Elton admitted Freddie could “out-party” him.
The Christmas after Freddie died, Elton John received a package wrapped in a pillowcase. Inside was a painting by one of his favourite artists and the following note: “Dear Sharon, thought you’d like this. Love Melina.”
Michael Putland14/28He had a fondness for nicknames
Elton “Sharon” John was far from the only friend or associate of Freddie’s with a female nickname. He himself was “Melina” and bandmates Brian May and Roger Taylor were “Maggie” and “Liz” respectively. Rod Stewart was reportedly christened “Phyllis”.
Shutterstock15/28It will come as no surprise that two of music’s most flamboyant artists, Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson, knew each other. They recorded a few songs together and, in 2014, “There Must Be More To Life Than This” was released on the compilation album Queen Forever.
They also worked on a song called “State Of Shock”, which was re-recorded as a duet between The Jacksons and Mick Jagger in 1984 after Thriller (Jagger later performed it with Tina Turner at Live Aid).
Why did the relationship not produce more music during their lifetimes? Some say it’s because Michael Jackson would bring Bubbles the chimp in for feedback on the music, which Freddie found hard to watch. Others have blamed it on a pet llama. Honestly, neither version is anything other than enjoyable.
Shutterstock16/28Freddie’s last partner was the Irish hairdresser Jim Hutton. They wore wedding rings – even though they could not legally marry – and lived together. When Freddie told Jim that he was HIV positive, he said he understood if Jim left him. “I love you, Freddie, I’m not going anywhere,” Hutton said. Hutton also had HIV and died of lung cancer in 2010. He also published a memoir about their time together in 1994, Mercury And Me.
Dave Hogan17/28Mercury could handle himself in a fight
Backstage at Live Aid, Mercury encountered Status Quo frontman Francis Rossi, who had opened the Wembley leg of the concert. Rossi purportedly made an off-colour joke about Freddie’s sexuality and Freddie grabbed him and put him in a headlock. “If he’d wanted to have me, he’d have had me,” Rossi later said. “I couldn’t move.” Clearly there weren’t any real hard feelings: Status Quo would open for Queen on tour two years later in 1986.
Shutterstock18/28Freddie Mercury was an avid lover of his cats. In his solo album, Mr Bad Guy, there’s a dedication in the sleeve notes: “This album is dedicated to my cat Jerry. Also Tom, Oscar and Tiffany and all the cat lovers across the universe. Screw everybody else!” He also wrote the song “Delilah” as a tribute to the titular cat.
19/28Tim Rice described it as Freddie’s “coming-out song”. Freddie, however, described it as “[bearing] no real meaning, it’s all rhyming nonsense”.
Shutterstock20/28Freddie’s 39th birthday party was held in Munich and you may have seen it in the video for his solo single “Living On My Own”. It was just two months after their Live Aid set and Mercury insisted all attendees turn up in black-and-white drag. Freddie just came as himself – a power move if ever there was one – and the photos are a joy.
Freddie loved a lavish party: the bash held in New Orleans to mark their record Jazz featured trays of coke and nude waitstaff.
Shinko Music21/28Mercury had a penchant for riding on the shoulders of superheroes
If you saw a Queen gig in the very early Eighties, there was a good chance that during the encore you might bear witness to two of pop culture’s most iconic figures taking to the stage together: Freddie Mercury would take to the stage on the shoulders of a man in a Darth Vader outfit, sometimes wearing nothing more than a pair of tight black briefs. The stunt began as a jokey reference to the lyrics of “Bicycle Race”, in which Mercury sings “I don’t like Star Wars,” and eventually developed into the singer riding Superman and Father Christmas as well.
George Wilkes Archive22/28He wasn’t afraid to go head-to-head with music’s most notorious characters
According to Brian May, in 1977 the Sex Pistols’ enfant terrible bassist Sid Vicious approached Mercury at a recording studio and made a comment about how Queen and Mercury were “bringing ballet to the masses”. Cue a withering put-down from Freddie. “I called him Simon Ferocious or something and he didn’t like it at all,” he recalled a few years later. “I said, ‘What are you gonna do about it?’” Looking back at the encounter, Roger Taylor called Vicious “a moron”.
RB23/28He sang in a blues band before Queen
In the mid-1960s, Mercury sang in a blues band called Wreckage while studying graphic design at Ealing College Of Art. He was introduced by a fellow student to Roger Taylor and Brian May, who were themselves in a band named Smile. Smile, which Mercury eventually joined as vocalist, would become Queen.
ullstein bild24/28There’s a Freddie Mercury Memorial Day
Every year, fans gather on the first weekend of September at the Freddie Mercury statue in Montreux, Switzerland, where Mercury lived before his death and where Queen’s Mountain Studio was originally located. Montreux was the location for the recording of six Queen albums between 1978 and 1995, the year Made In Heaven was released by the other band members. Made In Heaven’s cover shows Mercury in Montreux.
Colin Davey25/28Mercury also loved ballet
In late 1977, Mercury appeared unannounced at a charity gala at the London Coliseum organised by the principal dancer of the Royal Ballet, Wayne Eagling. Mercury appeared onstage in a silver-sequinned leotard and performed a routine that Eagling had devised and choreographed for him.
FG/Bauer-Griffin26/28His collaboration with Montserrat Caballé
Freddie Mercury was a well-known longtime fan of opera and Catalan soprano Montserrat Caballé was one of his favourite singers. After an appearance on Spanish TV in which Mercury mentioned he would like to meet Caballé, the two eventually collaborated on “Barcelona” – the song that would become the theme for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, a year after Mercury’s death.
Georges De Keerle27/28He broke records
In 1981, Mercury and Queen performed in front of 231,000 fans at a stadium in São Paulo, a world record for a gig at the time. The band would continue to pioneer stadium rock, culminating – of course – in their massive 1985 Live Aid set.
28/28“The Show Must Go On” was released as a single just six weeks before Freddie Mercury’s death. After Brian May wrote it, he feared Mercury would be too ill to sing the demanding vocals. When the time came, the singer, who was so ill that the accompanying video was just a montage of old live clips, drank a measure of vodka, said “I’ll fucking do it, darling” and smashed it in one take.
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