Death and legacy
On November 23 1991, a statement was issued on behalf of Freddie Mercury in which he admitted his diagnosis of AIDS, but did address the issue of whether or not he was gay. He died of AIDS related pneumonia the following day. Dave Clark, of the Dave Clark Five and a close friend, was with him when he died. According to friends Mercury was by the time of his death nearly blind, and had been bedridden for some time.
As his conditioned worsened in the final weeks Mercury decided to face the inevitable and quit taking the medication which was lengthening his life, taking only the medicine needed to control pain. Though he was aware that he was very near the end, his statement gave the impression that he was not on his deathbed, since he indicated that he intended to continue his policy of maintaining his privacy and avoiding granting interviews.
Or maybe that was just a final joke from a complex personality. Mercury had lived with a woman, Mary Austin, in the days before Queen became a huge international hit, and they remained close for the rest of his life. He left her the bulk of his estate and the London home in which he died, as well as his ashes, with instructions for their dispersal. To his long-time companion Jim Hutton he reportedly left $500,000. Hutton died of cancer in 2010.
Mary Austin also received Freddie’s royalties, which saw an upsurge following his death. Sales of Queen’s albums increased in the United States the year after Mercury died, fueled in part by the movie Wayne’s World, which was released in 1992 and featured Bohemian Rhapsody. At the time of Freddie’s death Queen had sold about 17 million albums in America, by the year 2004 that number had increased to 34.5 million albums.
Many of the songs written, or co-written, by Freddie Mercury have become iconic, including Bohemian Rhapsody, We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Somebody to Love, and others. He was inducted with Queen into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the UK Music Hall of Fame. A statue of Freddie Mercury overlooks Lake Geneva in Montreux, Switzerland. The statue presents him holding a microphone on a broken stand.
Where do we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
“Queen: The Early Years”, by Mark Hodkinson, 1995
“Scientists explain Freddie Mercury’s incredible singing voice”, by Fox News, April 19, 2016, online
“Freddie Mercury: The Definitive Biography”, by Lesley-Ann Jones, 2011
“Freddie Mercury: A Kind of Magic”, by Ross Clarke, 1992
“The Man Who Would Be Queen” Wikipedia.
“The Sins of Saint Freddie”, by John Harris, Guardian on Friday, January 14, 2005
“I Couldn’t Bear to See Freddie Wasting Away”, by Tim Teeman, The Times of London, September 7, 2006
“Queen star dies after AIDS statement”, by Paul Myers, The Guardian, November 25, 1991