On Monday, Nov. 25, 1991, my mother woke me up with a knock on the door.
“What’s the name of that singer you love so much?” she asked, cigarette and coffee in hand. “Because he’s on the news.”
I was a 23-year-old slacker with an English degree who graduated the previous May. I had no job, no future prospects. The week before I’d moved out of the apartment I shared with a crazy ex-girlfriend and was staying at my mother and stepfather’s house until I could find my own place.
Surrounded by my possessions in trash bags and milk crates, I arose from an air mattress with the sound of Kurt Loder from MTV News announcing that Freddie Mercury, lead singer of the rock band Queen, died the night before from AIDS-related bronchio-pneumonia.
“That’s such a shame,” my mother said. “And he was so handsome.”
She knew this was a big deal for me. Her garage was stacked with boxes of every record Queen ever made, every 45, tubes full of posters. Second only to the Beatles in Great Britain, Queen ruled the charts with the stadium anthems “We Will Rock You” and “We Are The Champions.” There’s also the operatic opus cum karaoke staple “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
By that November, now twenty years ago, their stardom had faded, especially in the U.S. It was then I realized that my fandom-turned-obsession was also a kind of love affair, which was now coming to an end.
Since I was nine years old, Freddie Mercury—flamboyant frontman, rock icon—was at the center of my rather dull suburban life. Like millions of others, while he was alive, he earned my devotion and hero-worship. It was only when he died, and in the years that followed, that he became an actual human being. I finally saw him for who he was: a gay man.
Everybody loves Queen nowadays. This past September, Google celebrated what would have been Freddie Mercury’s 65th birthday with an animated doodle on its homepage. Singing competitions feature Queen every season, with Freddie’s operatic voice as a benchmark for melismatic contestants. There’s a long-running Queen musical in London’s West End and around the world, a competition to be in an official tribute band, and a biopic with Sacha Baron Coen in the works. In 1991, however, Queen couldn’t get arrested in the U.S., and being a fan of Freddie Mercury was tantamount to saying you were either gay, unhip, or both.
Growing up, I didn’t want my rock stars to be like me. Life in South Jersey was boring, unsophisticated. The son of a truck driver and part-time secretary, I lived in a rancher and went to Catholic school. Nothing around me could be rockstar-like. Everyman rockers Bruce Springsteen and John Cougar made me cringe back then.
“People want art,” Freddie said in 1977. “They want showbiz. They want to see you rush off in your limousine.” He toasted his audiences with champagne in ballet tights. I wanted some of his showbiz presence to rub off on me, but what was that presence?
Rock ’n’ roll equals sex. To listen to Jim Morrison or Elvis Presley for years as obsessive teenagers must leave a different effect than listening to, say, singing along to the lead singer of a rock band called Queen who dressed like Leatherman from the Village People.
Once in high school I got into a fight with a boy named Frank when he said I was gay because I liked Queen. To admit that my rock idol was gay would be tantamount to saying that I, too, was gay, and that was social suicide as a teen in South Jersey. So we duked it out. Most of the time I would say Freddie Mercury was “bisexual,” as if he had somehow reformed himself. I wasn’t especially naïve, and Freddie didn’t hide his sexuality, but he also didn’t proclaim it. He said it would be “boring” if he did.
If we were good Freudians, we would concede we’re all a bit bisexual. At some point, gazing at Freddie channel Elvis Presley in “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and Donna Summer in “Another One Bites The Dust,” I questioned whether all this added up to me being gay myself. Was I in love with Freddie Mercury?
When Queen’s video to “I Want to Break Free,” an homage to Coronation Street in which the band members dressed in drag, came out, it was banned by MTV and seen as some transsexual recruitment video. I was doubly horrified. I am ashamed to admit to this gay panic now, but I was afraid Freddie’s gayness was rubbing off on me.
It’s not that I didn’t suspect or understand on some level that Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of a rock band called Queen who sported the Chelsea macho clone look, was gay. Should sexual preference matter when someone loves that artist’s work? Certainly not. What about if you’re obsessed with the person who made it, want to know everything about them? This complicates things.
It came to a head after the summer before I started college. I knew I liked girls, but the two times I had sex were clumsy affairs. One night, drinking at a bar in Philadelphia that would serve my friends, a nice man in motorcycle chaps and studded vest struck up a conversation.
He placed his hands was on my shoulder, rubbing it, then started to move down. We got to the point where I had to give my first “I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression but I’m straight” speech.
“But I heard you talking about Queen,” he said. “How can you love Freddie Mercury and not be gay?”
Back then, there were many feminine rock frontmen to choose from—David Bowie, David Lee Roth, Robert Plant—but there was something different about Freddie Mercury. Biographers point out his “exotic” background. Born Faroukh Bulsara in Zanzibar to a Parsi family, he went to boarding school in India and moved with his family to London in 1964, when he was 17.
“I’m not going to be a rock star,” he told a fellow art student at college. “I’m going to be a legend.”
Back then, I chose Freddie because of his voice and the songs he sung—sweet and soulful one track, operatic and angry the next. I swooned to his records with headphones on in my room. I was a dramatic kid, and Queen provided the perfect soundtrack to endure the chronic humiliation of adolescence.
Freddie wasn’t just my rock idol, I now realize; he was my diva. In The Queen’s Throat, Wayne Koestenbaum writes that when a gay man chooses his opera diva, it’s for life, and this pairing is unavoidably erotic, a devotion or obsession beyond even the bonds of marriage. “Only one diva can have the power to describe a listener’s life, as a compass describes a circle,” he writes.
For Koestenbaum that compass was Anna Moffo; for me, it was Freddie Mercury.
By 1991, I’d met real, live gay people and I was comfortable in my role as humdrum heterosexual. I knew about AIDS and HIV. Condoms were everywhere. Safe sex PSAs ran in the student center non-stop. I also knew AIDs didn’t just affect gay men—Magic Johnson had just announced he was HIV-positive earlier that month.
Freddie’s gaunt appearance in the final videos reminded me of the men I knew in Philadelphia and New York City, many of them writers and artists, who wore baggy clothing and a beard as they faced the end of their life. Queen stopped touring in 1986 and their singer became a recluse. Fans kept guessing, and he and the band kept his illness secret, recording songs until the end.
In the summer of 1991, I went to my first Queen fan convention in a hotel in Pennsylvania. In a conference room, we screened some recent videos, and Freddie looked particularly unwell.
“He’s just skinny is all,” one Midwestern woman said to me. “He just needs a couple square meals.”
The day before he died, he issued a statement announcing his HIV status, where he lay in bed surrounded his assistant, rock legend Dave Clark, as well as his boyfriend of six years and his cats. Freddie didn’t go out with a long guitar chord or pyrotechnics. He didn’t die a tragic figure, nor did he die a heroic one. He went out the same way all of us will: as a human being.
The biographies and tell-all memoirs that followed painted a slightly different picture of Freddie. He was outrageous onstage and a party animal offstage. He also kept a koi pond, loved Japanese art, went to nightclubs, enjoyed elaborate dinners, took care of his parents and made up female nicknames for all his friends.
He was, in other words, a middle-aged gay man. Which made me love Queen’s music and fall in love with Freddie all over again.
Perhaps it’s the case that my love has become more unabashed now that he’s gone, not only because I’m comfortable with my own sexuality and his, but because it has become cool again to love Queen and Freddie.
Critics who called Queen everything from self-involved prats to fascists have largely died off, replaced by a new generation who see Freddie and Queen as the missing link between David Bowie and ABBA, a Beach Boys in Led Zeppelin clothing led by a Liza Minelli fanatic who toured like the Who.
In this age of meat dresses and same-sex marriage, it doesn’t matter that Queen’s singer was a flamboyant gay man. Lady Gaga’s namesake comes from Queen’s 1984 hit “Radio Ga Ga,” an homage to both singers’ showmanship.
When students at the college where I teach find out I am a Queen fan who wrote two strange books about the band, their eyes light up.
“Queen is my favorite band, too,” one always tells me.
The 20th anniversary of the death of Freddie Mercury won’t be marked by gatherings in Central Park. I know that. This week I’m keeping it simple. I’ll pour a glass of champagne and sing along to “Love of My Life,” one of Freddie’s trademark ballads, sung by thousands.
No one will ask, “Where were you when Freddie Mercury died?” A better question might be: what died along with Freddie Mercury, and what still lives on, 20 years later?
30 responses
This is an outstanding essay — thank you Rumpus for publishing it, thanks to Nester for writing it! <3 !!!
The imaginative engagements, crushes and cathexes, hopes, dreams and dramas of heterosexual men of conscience remain some of deepest, darkest secret wellsprings of optimism, of revolution, in all culture. The day long ago that you imprinted on Freddie, and became somehow irretrievably his, was a glorious day for all the women who want to know your art or your anatomy or anything about how you aspire. Some day—it can’t come soon enough— straight masculinity (or something like it) won’t be forced to walk about as the starved, over-edited, wary mode you push back against here. That will be a day of thanksgiving. Great essay. Much appreciated.
Really excellent work.
Thank you so much for writing this. I felt/feel the same way. After learning of Freddie’s death, the next day I volunteered at Mid-Missouri AIDS Project. I realized today, because of that, I have 20 years of volunteerism/activism under my belt – of which I am very proud.
Fantastic! I love the last line!
What an awesome tribute to Freddie…lover of life, singer of songs. I’ve been a huge Queen fan since the 70’s and it’s only gotten stronger over time. They were the best then they are the best now. Freddie was the premier frontman – electric on stage, always had the crowd in the palm of his hand, fearless with their music and always the best he and Queen could be. My heart as yours and others today is heavy but the music lives on.
I liked your words, they almost made me cry, but I just disagree with you in the sense that when talking about Freddie, everything spins around his sexuality. He was first than a gay a person, an excellent singer and performer. That other matter should be in the background.
Thank you for writing this – so poignant; the last line is so succinct. Freddie was a consummate artist, it was always the performance for him, always 100% effort; a true showman, not forgetting Brian, Roger and John who gave him his ‘platform’ on which, and with which, to perform. I can’t imagine him being 65 – nor liking it! Thanks for the music, Freddie, and for always being the ultimate showman.
I loved absolutely everything about this essay. The man really did become legendary.
The night Freddie died, my best friend and I stayed up late debating whether gay people could get into heaven. I was 13 and had a secret crush on her, and her father was a minister.
But I understood soon after that Freddie was not gay. Not that it changed the restrictions on heaven, of course: according to the Christians I knew at that time, there was a blanket ban on all such deviants. But when other kids would taunt me with “You liked Freddie Mercury? He was a poof!”, my response was, “He was bisexual! Get it right!”
I enjoyed this essay’s broader context, the story of coming to terms with one’s own sexuality and with appreciating a queer icon. But what troubles me about it is that it seems to erase Freddie’s own self-identification and some of his most significant relationships. Other people have repeatedly labelled him as gay, and maybe he didn’t care enough for labels to put them right. Instead, people have decided for him, often seeming to invoke the simplistic formula of assigning an orientation to someone based only on the gender of their most recent partner. I have no doubt that you know more about Freddie and Queen than I do, but that’s precisely why I’m surprised that you categorise him as ‘gay’ without question – so many times, here, in one essay.
I feel glad that one of the first stars I loved was bisexual, especially given my homophobic surroundings. It would have been lonelier if he wasn’t there. I’m not even that invested in the word ‘bisexual’ these days – I prefer to identify as queer, but often revert to bi just to make it easier for people – but I believe it’s still important that bisexual identities are acknowledged and not erased. Still, Freddie and his sexuality seem to have contributed to both your and my formative experiences, even if we understand it in different ways.
WOW my friend we grew up basically fighing to keep Queen alive during the period between the appearance of Freddies Moustache and the IMO the half Disco Hot Space. especially with the headbangers and i wonder what those headbangers thought when their icon rob halford came out of the closet hmmm lol. LIVE AND LET LIVE my words to haters everywhere. I really admire my sons generation he is in his twenties most all of the speed and death metal bands he listens too cite Queen as major influences, When Metallica Covered Stone Cold Crazy that broke all barriers and it seems not as relevant in the music world as their is with the Right Wingers and Fundy so called christians. I mean think of it since Freddies passing there hasnt been any real bands that could even get close to the sound and various types genre that queen so sucessfully covered
I loved this piece, but I have to agree with Nine–bisexuality is not just a Freudian dream, and it’s worth embracing this part of Freddie’s (and millions of others’) experience in all its gorgeous, gut-wrenching complexity.
Beautifully written. This hits closer to home than you will ever realize. I was 19 when he died and I grew up listening to Queen because my mother in my early days was a true rocker and had every queen album. I love the group and love the songs but like you I fell in love with the man as well as the music. The more I learned about him the more loved about him and regret I never got to meet him or see them live. Like you I’m comfortable with my sexuality, being straight a father of 4 and a good husband. I still to this day get teased by some of my friends about being a queen fan but it doesn’t bother me for all I have to do is put on my headphones and “Don’t Stop Me Now”
I really liked this article.
I am a teenager and one day I was on youtube and stumbled on Queen. The first time I heard was I Want To Break Free.
I really liked I Want To Break Free although I thought Freddie Mercury was weird at the time.
Then I clicked on Somebody To Love.
I loved that song.
From then on, I listened to Queen and I did research on Freddie Mercury.
I really grew fond of Freddie Mercury from watching his live performances on youtube and looking up what type of person he was. I found it ironic that Freddie Mercury and I were both Virgos born in September.
For his sexuality, I don’t care if he was gay or bisexual. He was an amazing performer and knew how to wow the audiences. Although he lived an lavish lifestyl, he was actually a humble and decent person.
I love him and sadly he died 4 years before I was born. I wish I could have met him and I wish that I was alive in the 1970s to see him perform live.
RIP Freddie Mercury
I’m 31, would’ve been about ten when Freddie died, and I must confess I never thought about Queen much until Adam Lambert came along. Then it was all about how he loves Queen, he’s going to perform with Queen, how he and Freddie are so similar. I watched Queen + Adam Lambert in Kiev in June, mostly for Lambert, but I came away with much curiosity about Queen and haven’t stopped listening to them since. What I’ve discovered, with much delight, is that Queen are so much more than “We Are the Champions” and “We Will Rock You.” Adam Lambert and Freddie Mercury are very similar, and the first time I actually listened to Freddie speak I knew I was done. For many of the same reasons I love Lambert, I knew I would love Freddie – things extending beyond voice and music to style, showmanship, and creativity . . . and intelligence, as well as that radiance that makes people fall in love with them eternally.
That Adam Lambert is gay and Freddie Mercury was bi don’t matter a bit to me outside of the fact that orientation is a part – only a part – of what makes up the whole and I’m interested in the whole of both of them. Although I’m a straight woman, I find it interesting that I identify with the author’s dilemma – a straight woman liking a gay male singer is not really interpreted the same way as a straight man liking a gay male singer, but it still raises certain questions within. Coming from “straight suburbia” even now, moving up through schools with ignorant kids who think gay is “weird” and adults who barely acknowledge it at all – will definitely provoke soul-searching questions when one’s eyes are finally opened to the “other half,” so to speak. I was really never comfortable with sexuality at all until Lambert sent me on a self-discovery trip, which continues on with Freddie . . . Adam Lambert is amazing and Queen is extraordinary and I’m so glad I found them both, they’ve changed my life . . .
I remember exactly where I was when heard the terrible news of FM’s passing. Knew very ill, but still devasting shock. I believe both FM & Elvis had ‘3 lungs’ -small smile. Yes, this ol’ bird remembers Elvis’ passing (funeral) and in the early morning news of John Lennon’s death. Sadly thinks of the songs which may have been sung and their causes whom never heard those beautiful voices. Gay, straight or best of both worlds (?) who cares. We all miss them. Too very soon in this world & our radios. Perhaps that is what we can all agree on. Love always.
Daniel , I enjoyed reading your story above very much. Freddie is the love of my life too. I was 19 years old in 1974 when I first heard Killer Queen and loved Queen immediately, but had fallen in love with Freddie Mercury. He in my eyes is the perfect man, yes with flaws someone might say, but he was not of this world, of that I am sure. He was an Angel fallen from Heaven and was only temporarily allowed to be on Earth with us for 45 year no more, no less. I adore you Freddie, for your voice, your inspiration in my life and for everything you were and still are. You did become a legend, you always knew you were going to. Love you.
Thankyou Daniel.
Read Freddie’s will and you’ll find that only Mary Austin and his parents, sister mattered to Freddie. Remaining were his help and he gave either $500,000 or $100,000.
Freddie’s talents will never be matched. We will never see the likes of a Freddie Mercury again.
What a beautiful essay. Very well written, and it brings out the poignancy of Freddie’s life, and his death. I still mourn him. I discovered Queen when I was talking to my husband about “this song” that I loved…he told me it was Queen. I’ve since been investigating him and his life, and have deep, if belated, love for the man. He was very special. Thanks for the great work!
I was enjoying reading this but as someone else has noticed everyone always concetrates way too much on his sexuality. I’m not saying he wasn’t excessive in that area but almost every other rock star has also been excessive in those terms, but when those stars are straight then it’s ok, they even get admired for such behaviour. Freddie’s sin isn’t that he was a promiscuous person, it’s that he was a gay promiscuous person. He was a great and unique musician, singer, composer and a performer.. everything else should be less important.
One of the greatest voices and talents ever to hit the airwaves. An era that unfortunately will most likely never return.
The bands that think they can sing now are a joke
Something you said that called my attention about something I’ve been asking myself for a while. Why were music critics such priks with Queen? . And when I say picks I don’t mean it because they apparently didn’t like most of their work but because most of it got on a personal level. If you read their comments on the band you’ll notice how it wasn’t just the professional aspect but also attacking them on a personal level. Regardless if you like Queen or not you’re just woww at how much hatred the music critics had against the band. Like it just surpassed professionalism. You don’t hear a professional music critic say the bands are fascists and a bunch of other horrible stuff like that was just pure hatred on a personal level. Then I remember this was the 70s and 80s. If people are still intolerant against honosexuality then can you imagine back then. It was all intolerance on disguise. Freddie never officially came out but he lived a very open gay life everybody was aware of. Combined with his very flamboyant on stage persona it was just too much for rock critics to accept. When you really think about it a lot of the hatred was homophobia in disguise. Or let’s say intolerance of the way Queen’s lead singer lived his life. It’s like when today people say i have no problem with gay people as long as they don’t rub it in my face but in reality they’re not rubbing anything they’re just living their life but it still somehow bothers people because the intolerance is still there. That’s how I see the music critics that attacked Queen on a very unfair personal level. The whole band had to suffer from it as well. Queen’s music gas influenced tons of artists , they have built an amazing legacy. Their 70s stuff was about the most complex piece of art work you’ve heard and yet they were never appreciated by the critics. It’s obvious. Before you were considered gay for admiring such amazing band and were looked down on. Now people have realized the genius of queen and amazing rock bands being influenced by everything freddie did. Now all those critics don’t matter. But it shows the injustice they had to face back then.
I LOVE Freddy because his words make me feel I am not alone in my thoughts, love, happiness or sadness.
His words set many people free. I am not gay and could not give a rats A..s if someone is(so cut the cr..)….
Freddy and Queen’ songs gave you heart… Made you feel alive and free no matter what… “we are the champions”… How sensitive he was and how brave to say out loud all that was in his HEART…
I am grateful for his WORDS in his music.
QWEEN, you are the greatest.
Sorry didn’t have my glasses I’ll just keep it simple nice work
I’m 18 and in LOVE with Freddie. It breaks my heart to think I will never get the chance to see him in person. I get tears in my eyes every time. As he says in his song “These are the days of our lives”… “we can’t turn back the clock… Ain’t that a shame?” :'(
YES IT IS FREDDIE, Yes it is…</3
Excellent, from the heart. All these years later, no one even comes close to Freddie’s stage presence and crowd connection. No one. <3 ya and miss ya Freddie.
Came across this post in a recent blog search and really enjoyed it, thank you! I was 11 when Freddie passed. I only faintly knew of Queen, but thanks to a big brother who was a fan, I would get to know their music more over the next 5 years. As an adult, I’ve really enjoyed re-discovering their music and while I wish I’d had more of a connection to them while they were alive, I feel like I get to listen with new/different ears – knowing the backstory and the struggles FM likely faced and how he turned those struggles (and hopes) into art. There is so much more of an appreciation for all them now and I’m so thankful to have their music in my life! I only wish Freddie could somehow see and know how much he is loved and respected (and accepted) even now. It breaks my heart to think of how he may have felt “punished” with his diagnosis, after finally seeming to find some level of happiness and self-acceptance.
Oops, didn’t mean to imply that Queen was dead in my last comment 😉 I meant while FREDDIE was alive! Very grateful the remaining members are still with us!
Thank you for this wonderful essay. I, too adore Queen. But their is a place in my heart where Freddie resides. A few months ago I saw the Kanye West meme where he was trying to sing Bho Rap. And failing. Then Freddie sings and I was blown away. I began to investigate and realized the more I listened, that Queen’s music was the soundtrack of my life. And I found digging deeper into their album tracks that this was, is, an epic band. In my opinion the best band of all time. And Freddie..what can one say about Freddie? Not of this world, comes to mind, brilliant, incomparable, tragic and divinely gifted. I have begun a book about this man,it was a compulsion, that I could not fight. Also where can we obtain the books that you wrote? Thanks for this.
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