Freddie Mercury truly lived a life of sex, drugs and rock and roll.
It’s hard to believe that the flamboyant frontman would be 76 years old today as he’s forever remembered as the young, dynamic and wildly charismatic lead singer of Queen.
Freddie died in November 1991 of AIDs-related pneumonia, a mere 24 hours after issuing a statement confirming he had the virus.
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But he famously said it would be “so boring to be 70” and that he “didn’t give a damn” if he died tomorrow – his was a life certainly lived.
(Image: Getty Images)
So as another year passes without the musical genius that was Freddie Mercury, we take a look at some of the saucier aspects of his eventful life – namely, sex.
In his time Freddie made some outrageous confessions, from sleeping with cats to having more lovers than Liz Taylor, so here’s all you need to know about the legend’s legendary life in the sack.
Freddie’s gargantuan sex drive
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Freddie – born Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar in 1946 – was openly bisexual and admitted he was “extremely promiscuous” and would “sleep with anything”.
He also said that he preferred no-strings encounters and had even had more lovers than Elizabeth Taylor.
In the Eighties, he embraced hedonism and even went so far as to hint he may have had relations with…cats.
He once said: “My sex drive is enormous. I sleep with men, women, cats – you name it. I’ll go to bed with anything! My bed is so huge it can comfortably sleep six.
“I used to be just an old slag who got up every morning, scratched his head, and wondered who he wanted to f**k today.
“I just lived for sex. I’m a very sexual person but I’m much more choosy now than I used to be.”
Infamous orgies
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It is believed that Freddie celebrated his birthday in 1970 with an epic five-day orgy. His debauched parties are the stuff of legends – an aspect of the 2018 biopic Bohemian Rhapsody that was criticised for being somewhat sanitised.
Even fellow hellraiser Elton John said that Freddie could “out party him” – probably referencing a notorious shindig in New Orleans Fairmont Hotel in 1978 that included nude waiters, a man biting the heads off live chickens and dwarves parading about with cocaine strapped to their heads.
According to NME, Freddie was so highly sexed, that he often had a quickie in between songs when performing.
Bisexuality
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Freddie’s sexuality was fairly fluid it seems. Though he made no secret of loving men, he was also engaged to his “best friend” Mary Austin, 71, and she even still lives in his West London mansion.
She was with him up until his death and he once said of her: “All my lovers asked me why they couldn’t replace Mary, but it’s simply impossible.
“The only friend I’ve got is Mary, and I don’t want anybody else. To me, she was my common-law wife. To me, it was a marriage.”
“We believe in each other. That’s enough for me. I couldn’t fall in love with a man the same way as I have with Mary.”
Freddie also lived briefly in Berlin with porn star Barbara Valentin, who described the rock god as “mostly gay”.
Love at the end
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Despite Freddie’s catalogue of partners – men and women – and describing himself as “not a very good partner for anybody”, he found love toward the end of his life with Irishman Jum Hutton.
Jim, who died in 2011 from cancer, was a hairdresser and was with Freddie for the last seven years of his life – and the pair was intensely private.
Especially after Freddie’s well-publicised affair with his conniving former manager Paul Prenter who allegedly tried to blackmail him into coming out.
According to Jim’s account of Freddie’s last days in his autobiography, Mercury and Me, Freddie decided to stop taking all medication apart from painkillers two weeks before his death.
(Image: Getty Images)
Jim wrote: “I knew that the end was very near. That night I took special care of him. He dozed and I lay next to him on top of the bed.”
He further recalled: “As I was changing Freddie into a clean T-shirt and pair of boxer shorts, I felt him try to raise his left leg to help a little. It was the last thing he did. I looked down at him, knowing he was dead.”
Jim said that all the pain and suffering had gone from Freddie’s face and that he looked at peace and a “picture of ecstasy”.
He added: “Seeing him like that made me happy in my sadness. I felt an overwhelming sense of relief. I knew that he was no longer in pain.”
Mary and a few other close friends were also said to be present for Freddie’s final moments and in his last music video for These Are The Days of our Lives, his parting message to his millions of adoring fans was simply: “I still love you.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
