Thirty years on, why Freddie Mercury’s legacy is a kind of magic
On the anniversary of his death from Aids, the legendary Queen star’s sister reveals his family’s sorrow, while his friends celebrate him as a gay icon
THIS week marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Freddie Mercury. But to his grieving sister, it still feels as if they lost him yesterday. In a rare interview, Kashmira Bulsara talks about her enduring sorrow over the passing of her beloved brother, who died of complications from Aids aged just 45.
The Queen frontman only admitted to the world on the day before he died that he was desperately ill with the disease he had been secretly battling for four years. And he was just as determined to keep the diagnosis from his family.
When Kashmira visited her dying brother, she says, he refused to admit the truth.
“He said that he’d got an incurable blood disease,” she recalls. “I said to him, ‘It’s not Aids, is it?’ He completely denied it, but I knew it was Aids. He didn’t want to talk about it, so I respected his wishes.”
But the strain of dealing with his mysterious illness took its toll on his parents and sister. Kashmira recalls that, as his death drew closer, “my dad was reading one of the many articles about Freddie, and tears were pouring down his face on to the newspaper. He said, ‘This should be me instead of Freddie’. It was so sad”.
Meanwhile, she says, her brother was struggling to come to terms with the terrible effect Aids had wreaked on his body, leaving him weak and gaunt.
He would watch films of Queen performances but they were a visible reminder of the speed of his decline.
“When Freddie would see his videos, he would say, ‘Oh, I was handsome’,’’ says Kashmira. “It’s very, very hurtful that he knew what he was going through. I thought my brother was handsome – still do! I really thought that was so sad.”
Her poignant memories are captured in Freddie Mercury: The Final Act, a moving new documentary about the last five years of the life of the singer, known for his flamboyant showmanship and powerful four octave voice.
Broadcast ahead of World Aids Day on December 1, the show, which is on BBC2 tomorrow at 9pm, explores in depth the motivation behind the tribute concert which took place six months after Freddie died.
AT THE time of Freddie’s death in 1991, there was still an appalling stigma attached to Aids and homophobia was rife. Roger Taylor, the Queen drummer, recalls: “We were very angry, and we had to stick up for our friend – our best friend.
“I remember thinking, ‘What can we do? We could have a concert to honour our friend’. I became fixated with the idea of giving him a hell of a send-off and at the same time promoting awareness about HIV/Aids.”
Roger reached for his phone book, a treasure trove of mega-star contacts, and soon Elizabeth Taylor, Liza Minnelli, Elton John, David Bowie, Annie Lennox, George Michael, Robert Plant and Roger Daltrey, to name but a few, had signed up to appear.
The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert was a triumph. One of the biggest gigs in history, it brought more than 70,000 people to London’s Wembley Stadium on April 20, 1992, and attracted over a billion more television viewers.
For four memorable hours, the concert not only paid tribute to the legend that was Freddie, but it also put HIV/Aids in the global spotlight and helped raise awareness about the condition. The concert closed with Liza Minnelli leading an exuberant singalong version of We Are The Champions and signing off by saying: “Thanks, Freddie. We just wanted to let you know we were thinking about you.”
Anita Dobson, the wife of Queen guitarist Brian May, underlines the importance of the concert for
Freddie’s remaining bandmates. “For the boys, it was a catharsis, a way of saying goodbye, but saying goodbye in front of everybody, of saying, ‘This was someone we loved deeply’.”
The concert also had a wider significance in helping to destigmatise HIV/Aids, a process that had been started by Princess Diana, who famously embraced hospital patients with Aids and declared: “HIV does not make people dangerous to know, so you can shake their hands and give them a hug.”
May agrees that the concert was the perfect opportunity to help to lift the shame surrounding Aids at that time.
He says that Freddie’s death “gave us and those close to us a kind of weapon to talk about Aids. The fact that he announced it
and said, ‘Look, I’ve got this’, and there was no shame in that, is very important.
“There shouldn’t be any stigma to having this disease. It is nothing to do with someone doing something wrong and being punished”.
Dr Mark Pakianathan, a consultant in HIV medicine, also pays tribute to the way that the concert helped to break down barriers. “The antidote to shame is light, isn’t it? It’s empathy,” he says.
“So if a secret stops being a secret and everybody can see it and get some love and acceptance, that’s powerful.
“I wish Freddie could have seen that outpouring of love and acceptance.”
It is May’s belief that his bandmate helped to overturn some of the prejudice people felt towards gay people back then, too.
“One of the results of Freddie’s life is that people can have a different attitude to people being gay,” he says.
“Here’s a guy who was strong, incredibly talented, quite magnificent in every way you could think of, and he was gay and quite public about it. “So I don’t think anyone can feel the same about that any more.”
So what lessons might we take from Freddie Mercury: The Final Act?
For a start, it reminds us that the singer had a passion for music that was simply irresistible.
According to May: “Freddie opened up his heart and gave it everything he had.
“He was a musician through and through and through. He lived for his music. He loved his music and he was proud of himself as a musician above everything else.”
Even though he was no longer with us, the concert underscored that Freddie also stood for an irrepressible lust for life.
JAMES Rogan, the programme’s director, says: “When you think about what Freddie symbolises, it’s just the joy of being alive. “There’s something mesmerising about his voice, particularly in Somebody to Love. That song captures the transcendent joy of being someone looking for love.
“The thing you carry with you after listening to Queen is a sense of vitality and joy and love of life.”
For his part, Dan Hall, the show’s producer, thinks that its message is: “For goodness sake, let’s stop shaming people. This is a story about friendship and love.” The film also reinforces the point that Freddie was adored by fans all around the world; he was very much somebody to love. Dan adds: “We learn quite what a brotherhood Queen were. We learn how witty and wonderful Freddie was, but also how loyal the band were to each other. The film captures the pressure that was on Freddie from society and how he dealt with that and channelled it into some of the greatest work he ever did.
“But above all, we learn how much the people closest to him loved him and how much he loved them.” How might we sum up Freddie’s legacy, then? It’s a kind of magic.
●●Freddie Mercury: The Final Act is on BBC2 at 9pm on Saturday