Freddie Mercury's life was tragic, but it was phenomenal, too. Years after his death the public finds the Queen front man as fascinating as ever. "You can do what you want with my music," he told his manager just a few days before his death. "But don't make me boring."
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00:00Freddie Mercury's life was magic, but he also faced more than his share of tragedy.
00:05Years after his death, the public finds the Queen frontman as fascinating as ever.
00:09Here's a look at Freddie Mercury's tragic real-life story.
00:12Just in case you're wondering what sort of awesomely cool parents would name their kid
00:16Freddie Mercury, that's not his real name.
00:18Mercury was born Farooq Bulsara, which still could have been a pretty good rock star name.
00:23His family was Parsi, ethnically Persian followers of the Zoroastrian religion.
00:27He spent part of his childhood in India and part in colonial Africa.
00:31But in 1963, his family was forced to flee Zanzibar to London after the country achieved
00:36independence and poor Africans started targeting wealthier Indian families.
00:40In London, Mercury enrolled in graphic design classes at Islesworth Polytechnic.
00:44His mother, Ger, told The Telegraph in 2011 that she made him apply for graphic design
00:48jobs between all the songwriting he was doing while holed up in his bedroom.
00:52Ultimately, after annoying the neighbors with all that noise, he ended up moving out.
00:56He's been popular all around the world, and I want to keep his memory alive as much as
01:03I can do."
01:04When Mercury enrolled in Peter's Church of England school in India, he was self-conscious
01:08about his prominent upper teeth.
01:10His classmates caught on to this particular insecurity and gave him the cruel nickname
01:14Bucky.
01:15Childhood trauma tends to haunt us for the rest of our lives, and that was indeed the
01:18case for Mercury.
01:20Even after he became a star, he would cover up his mouth with one hand whenever he smiled.
01:24But some people think his teeth might have actually contributed to his distinctive singing
01:28voice.
01:29If Freddie Mercury had become a star in the 2010s instead of in the 1980s, his story would
01:34have had a different ending.
01:36According to The Advocate, he probably became infected with HIV in New York in the summer
01:40of 1982.
01:41The 2016 book Somebody to Love suggests he was already showing symptoms when he appeared
01:45on Saturday Night Live in September of that year, in what would be his last U.S. performance.
01:51AIDS was still newly emerging in the early 80s, publicly associated primarily with gay
01:55men, and Mercury wasn't open about his sexuality.
01:59Homophobia in that decade was vicious, and the rise of the AIDS epidemic made some people
02:03feel justified in attacking gay men both verbally and physically.
02:07So Mercury kept quiet, and some of those fears affected the treatment he sought, the people
02:11he told, and his decision to stop appearing in public.
02:15Mercury considered Bohemian Rhapsody to be his greatest achievement, but decades later
02:19were still arguing about what the song actually meant.
02:22The singer himself was pretty cagey about it.
02:24According to Rolling Stone, he once answered a question about the song's meaning with these
02:28words,
02:29"'I'll say no more than what any decent poet would tell you if you dared ask him to analyze
02:32his work.
02:33If you see it, dear, then it's there.'"
02:35A lot of people seem to think Bohemian Rhapsody is a coming-out song, though if that's the
02:39truth, it is so deeply disguised in metaphor that only a resurrected Mercury could say
02:44for sure.
02:45One person who knew him, manager John Reed, said he thought it might have been a coming-out
02:49song, though it bears mentioning that Mercury never actually publicly came out.
02:53If it was a comment on his sexuality, it doesn't seem to have been intended as a clear, direct
02:57message.
02:59One of Mercury's most important personal relationships was with his former girlfriend, Mary Austin.
03:04The authors of Somebody to Love attempted to explain why he might have put Austin above
03:07all of his gay relationships by suggesting it had to do with his own deep-seated homophobia.
03:12But maybe he was really just bisexual.
03:15Mercury referred to Austin as the love of his life and his common-law wife.
03:19As romantic partners, they were together for seven years, splitting up when Mercury
03:22started pursuing relationships with men.
03:25Even then, they remained close.
03:26He left most of his estate to her when he died, and he also entrusted her with secretly
03:30scattering his ashes.
03:32You couldn't deny Freddie the right to be at one with himself."
03:38Like everyone else in Mercury's life, his Queen bandmates dismissed the gossip around
03:42him and remained largely ignorant when it came to their frontman's health problems.
03:46In 1989, Mercury decided he wasn't up to doing tours, so the band didn't schedule one
03:50following the release of their album The Miracle.
03:53By 1990, Mercury was gaunt, sickly, and clearly not himself.
03:57His final public appearance was at the Brit Awards when Queen accepted the award for Outstanding
04:01Contribution to British Music.
04:03The acceptance speech was given not by Mercury, as everyone expected, but by guitarist Brian
04:07May.
04:08But Mercury did say one quick thing just before the band left the stage.
04:13Good night.