Queen lead tributes to Freddie Mercury 30 years after his death
The legendary singer died from AIDS-related illness in 1991.
Words: Jamie Tabberer; picture: Wiki
Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor have paid tribute to their late bandmate Freddie Mercury on the anniversary of his death.
Freddie, who was bisexual, died 30 years ago today (on 24 November 1991) from Aids-related complications.
The star, known for singing hits including ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘We Will Rock You’, was 45 years old.
“We were in hysterics most of the time”
Addressing the date, the band shared a picture of Freddie on their official social media accounts, along with a black heart and the caption: “Freddie Mercury 5th September 1946 – 24th November 1991.”
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Music producer Mke Mercury, who was a friend of “kind, generous and loving” Freddie’s also paid tribute to the icon in a new interview with Pink News.
He said: “Privately, he was an extremely kind, generous, loving person with a fantastic sense of humour. We were in hysterics most of the time. We had great fun, and his home, although it was stuffed full of wonderful pieces of art and precious things, it was a home, and it was treated like a home. All the normal homely things went on there. A great evening for us when we weren’t working was to play Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit – it was like a war zone when you played those games with Freddie by the way. The competition was intense.”
Meanwhile Deborah Gold, chief executive of the National Aids Trust, told PA: “Freddie Mercury has really had a lasting legacy.
“He’s one of a small handful of people who is truly enormously internationally well-known, and so at the time his death had a huge impact.
“In the short period of time before he died, he was open about the fact that he had Aids, and when those moments happen, it’s possible to grab hold of them and use them for something else.
“I think the other members of Queen and his friends really did that through their work at the Mercury Trust. They were able to take a really upsetting and sad situation and used the learning from that to really impact change.”
Last year, Queen landed another UK number one album with ‘Live Around the World’, part of their collaboration with Adam Lambert.
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