Mylife is ‘hell’: Bohemian Rhapsodist

CALGARY • On the night he wound up in a viral video that would eventually be viewed by millions, Robert Wilkinson says, he simply set out to join his friends for a drink in the pub of the local Best Western in Edson, Alta.

That November evening ended with a drunk driving charge and a passionate, nearperfect rendition of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody that has since garnered nearly seven million views on Youtube.

Mr. Wilkinson said in an interview Tuesday his life in his west-central Alberta hometown of fewer than 10,000 people has since become a “slow burning hell.”

“The ringing and all the messages on my ipad. I find it difficult to keep a battery charge on it,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do now. End up in the gutter, probably.”

The grainy black-and-white video footage, embossed with white timestamps, was shot when Mr. Wilkinson was sitting in the back of a squad car.

Mr. Wilkinson, who said he is ‘‘365 months old,” is seen in the six-minute-long clip plead- ing his case to the officer. He then begins to sing: “Is this just real life? Is this just fantasy?” including a vocal rendition of the bom-bom-bom-bom-boms: “I’m just a poor boy, nobody loves me, I’m just a poor boy from a poor family,” and, most poignantly considering his position at the time in the back of a locked vehicle: “No, we will not let you go. Let me go.” The clip ends: “Nothing really matters ... nothing really matters, even the RCMP.”

Mr. Wilkinson said he’s expected to be in court to face charges of drunk driving and failure to provide a breath sample this November, almost a year to the day after he was arrested.

Last month, he was fired from his job at the local recycling plant. He said his manager told him: “‘Because of your reputation ... you’re not allowed to drive the forklift or the truck, because of insurance purposes.’ “And it ended like that.” The man admits he’s developed a bad reputation, but said he doesn’t know quite why.

“You know how people are labelling people, and once someone gets a bad rap, it sticks with them for life? I guess I just had a bad rap with the police,” he said. “The police have hurt me more than once, but I don’t want to go into that.”

Once, he claimed, he was almost charged with impaired driving when he attempted to ride his homemade electric bicycle home. That time, the hostess of the karaoke bar came to his rescue and drove him instead.

In another incident, “I had a run-in with [a police officer] when I first put my homemade electric bicycle on the road. He had it towed because he said it was uninsured,” Mr. Wilkinson said, adding he won that court case, but still had to pay the cost to have the bicycle removed: “$324 and 34 cents. Or something like that.”

He said that same officer was lurking outside the alley of the Best Western on the night the video was shot.

“We were just twisting one off after a long week of work,” he said, admitting he’d had a few drinks, but insisting he wasn’t drunk. He lived a few blocks away from the bar and his friends trusted him to drive home in his car.

The RCMP officer pulled him over and arrested him.

“He decided he was going to take control of my life and throw me into the back of the cop car,” he said. “Yeah, I just shared all my thoughts on life with that guy. The video is edited down.” One of the sections left untouched was his version of Bohemian Rhapsody. He obtained a copy of the video in his court disclosure files and uploaded it onto his Youtube page.

Mr. Wilkinson said he’s lived in Edson all his life.

His family moved there decades ago and his father ran a small appliance repair shop. Despite his bad luck in the town, he said he can’t picture himself living anywhere else.

“I don’t find any other place very alluring,” he said.

The pub located inside the hotel was equipped with a karaoke machine, although Mr. Wilkinson insisted the epic rock ballad for which he has now become temporarily famous was not one of his favourite songs to sing there.

In fact, he’s not quite sure how he memorized the classic.

“All people are gifted with the ability to memorize things, although I do encourage forgiveness and forgetfulness,” he said.

His favourite karaoke songs are Bubba Shot the Juke Box, Mr. Bojangles, All You Need is Love and Heaven for Everyone.