Dear Freddie Mercury

Dear Freddie,

We are supposed to be on the letter O or P and I’ve lost track. I have to admit. I’m about to give up on this alphabet concept. It seems that I am starting to just invent words to apply to my usual randomness. For some reason for the first time in my life the alphabet seems daunting. I have a lot of random thoughts and organizing them into some kind of “subject” such as letters of the alphabet etc. is not the easiest for me.

Before you read this post I’d like to remind you of something I made very clear in my first posts, this blog is mine, it’s my opinions in some instances. It’s my best recollection of my knowledge about Freddie and his life, if you don’t agree that’s okay, despite what social media might seem to demonstrate. It IS POSSIBLE to disagree in a nice way.

The difference between social media and this blog and all blogs, is this isn’t for immediate consumption, you are welcome to stop reading/following, or whatever at any time and my blog will not chase after you or start a war with you. Whereas twitter and things, they will. So remember, I draw a lot of conclusions, but conclusions that are not based in science are always just educated opinions. In science there are for the most part “absolutes.” Gravity exists, what goes up will come down, etc. In any other medium such as writing or creativity in any form, all conclusions are based on memories, life-events and how they shaped you, and research. When a professional journalist or author writes they have people specifically to check facts or make sure that continuity is right, in anything where there isn’t such a person, it’s all opinion. So with all that wordiness and boring crap in mind, enjoy or try to anyway.

Personal Life

I seem to be on repeat of the same concepts, just in different wording.

JIM HUTTON

I don’t know why all this time, even though I know better and have seen it first hand for way too long, I still get VERY upset by the Jim Hutton bashers. They all talk about respecting Freddie’s legacy and things, but they don’t respect Jim. They want you to respect Mary but they don’t respect the other person in Freddie’s life. According to ALL let me repeat that, ALL of Freddie’s friends and family, Freddie had two significant relationships in his life, Mary and Jim.

I want to point out. With a lie, very seldom does a significant number of people say the exact same thing. That’s why it’s called a “web of lies.” You get caught in it and can’t get out or remember where it goes.

When you have more than a dozen or so people who were literally close, physically and emotionally to Freddie who have said that his and Jim’s relationship was love and it was real, it’s the closest to the absolute truth you’re going to get. There is no way that all the people some of who barely know each other or don’t at all got together to plan to lie to the world about Jim Hutton. It didn’t happen, argue all you like, but if that many people say the SAME thing, that is the truth, not what you want to twist other things to make it look like. These are people that actually knew and were a part of his life. Why do you think you know better? I sure as hell don’t. If all these people said that Freddie loved to swim. Then people on social media said no he didn’t. You know who I’m going to believe? His friends. Now we know he didn’t swim often, but the question of whether he could or not hasn’t been definitively answered. The question of whether he and Jim were a legitimate couple has been definitively answered by many eye witnesses. Say what you want, you are wrong they are right.

I have a feeling Jim has always been that person who gets picked on because they are an easy target. All the man did was try to tell his story and wrote a book about a man he was head over heels for only about two years after his death. Jim Hutton never once insulted or was mean about Freddie in that book, until the end when writing about something he was still traumatized by Jim doesn’t sound negative or unhappy at all. That book reads like a love story, a realistic and complicated love story. Unlike David Minns’ book it doesn’t read like some bitter ex wrote it.

Like David saying Freddie beat him. Come on now. If he was hitting you I’m absolutely positive you were hitting him back. Abuse is when someone is a victim. Every physical fight isn’t abuse, not if it’s a fair fight. With David Minns and Freddie and honestly most of the people Freddie dated and him, if they came to blows they were equally matched, there was no complete victim. Don’t forget Freddie was an award winning boxer in school. You don’t forget how to fight.

Yes, Freddie prized his privacy over all things, but let me tell you this right now. I can name three very popular “biographies” that have so much worse things in them than anything that Jim wrote. Who are written by people who never met him or knew him. The Jim bashers use these bs bios as “evidence” and if it fits their agenda it’s “gospel”

Yes, Mary got the house and I don’t think that’s insignificant. It was known to ANYONE who knew Freddie that you dare not try to come between he and Mary or you’d take your life in your hands and Jim knew that. He respected Mary for a long time. He never begrudged her special treatment. To be in Freddie’s life was to know that Mary was very high on the totem pole of importance. No one is denying that she was loved by him deeply his whole life. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.

Jim wasn’t someone Freddie expected. Yes, to answer one of the arguments the Jim bashers have, in the beginning he was used to make Winnie jealous. But as they dated for a little while as is normal in any romantic relationship. As time went on they spent more time together and things with Winnie fell away and Jim became the important one.

First of all, why the hell do you want to validate Winnie as his “husband” and invalidate Jim? By every single account, Jim Hutton was 100 times better to Freddie than Winnie. Winnie and he had a relationship that was committed in word, but in action was very hot and cold. Despite what the Jim haters say, just because Freddie wore a ring that HE PAID FOR! that matched a similar one to one he gave to Winnie, does not automatically mean anything else than a ring. Knowing Freddie he probably got used to wearing it and forgot he had it on. It happens ask anyone who has been married for a number of years. They don’t even remember they are wearing it.

Not to mention if there was any physical altercations between Freddie and Winnie they were not at all evenly matched. Freddie was small and Winnie was a big guy. Winnie cheated and Freddie cheated OFTEN. So why the hell would you want to validate THAT union. Winnie and Freddie couldn’t even fight without a translator. Yes, at one point during the 1983-1985 Munich days Freddie had “moved in,” with Winnie. Let’s examine that for a minute.

There are two periods in Freddie’s life where he was the most wild. The early 80’s in NYC and the mid 80’s in Munich. Those two periods can rival each other for amount of wildness and debauchery very equally. Freddie found a minorly famous German film star in Barbara Valentine who had an in with all the cool gay scene in Munich, where let’s remember Freddie didn’t speak German. Much like cooking, learning another language was just something he wasn’t going to put a lot of brain power into. I’m sure had he wanted to he could have learned German well. He just had no desire. So he meets Winnie and I won’t try to spell his last name because I always butcher it, and he’s just Freddie’s type. He owns a prominent restaurant in Munich and he’s friends with Barbara, Freddie’s club BFF. Freddie’s mental energy went into the things he loved, mostly music not learning German so he could maybe verbally communicate with his boyfriend. The only way they had to communicate is physically and apparently that went very well. But you can only go so far in a relationship where you cannot speak to each other.

As far as I can tell for a couple of years in the Munich days Freddie would rent apartments here and there, but more than anything he would stay with Barbara at her “flat.” When he and Winnie decided to commit, at least in name, Freddie got done with his lease on an apartment in Munich and “moved in.”

From what I can tell and just pure common sense, Freddie and Winnie weren’t exactly home bodies. Peter Freestone talks about how Freddie was not one to get up early. Now, if you own a restaurant, you will know you have to start WAY ahead of time, to prepare the food and manage your staff. Winnie owned a restaurant which is not even close to a 9-5 job. He got up early, especially if, and I am not sure this is true or not, he served lunch. I am only speculating he got up early due to how restaurants work. So I don’t know for sure.

Germans are notorious for a very good work ethic. They work more than any American’s and take less vacations, which is saying something because apart from some Asian countries the USA works harder than most European countries. The Spanish have siesta where they shut down for a couple hours and take naps so they can party all night. Trust me, I’ve been, I know what I’m talking about. Germans use much less vacation days and work longer work hours than in the USA which to anyone in Spain is insanity.

The way Peter puts it, Winnie was very neat and Freddie was NOT. Freddie would sleep in and call Phoebe, who I’m not sure where the hell he was staying, I wish I could fill in holes, and Freddie would wake up and Peter would come to wherever Freddie was and fix his tea and breakfast and do just about everything for him. That was Peter’s role, that was his job. After Freddie got dressed Peter picked up behind him, cleaned up and did household chores in Winnie’s apartment. Trust me when I say he didn’t do this for Winnie’s sake.

Winnie woke up early and Peter describes them as ships who passed in the night. When one was working, say touring the world performing, or managing a successful restaurant one would sleep while the other worked. Freddie was gone A LOT, in the Munich days. He had gone to LA in 1984 long enough to rent a house there and get to know some of the city. Vince the bar-man enters the picture around that number of months (a year?) that it took for Queen to record The Works. The only times they saw each other was partying at night and Freddie doesn’t seem to be worried about flying back and forth to see Winnie and since they didn’t even speak the same language I doubt there were phone calls.

At the same time Freddie recorded things independently for movies such as Love Kills and Keep Passing the Open Windows, which made it onto The Works. Whether they were used or not, didn’t matter it still took time for the perfectionist that Freddie was to record those. In LA he dated SEVERAL men and reconnected with Joe Fanelli who then came on as his permanent chef. Let’s refresh, this is 1983-1984, exact times I’m not sure, but if what everyone especially the Jim bashers say is true then Freddie was in LA away from his “hubby” trying to hook other men. Back in Munich Winnie was sleeping around too and Freddie knew it and didn’t care. When he would get time between recording or performing he would go back to Munich, his play ground, and when he was back, he and Winnie had epic, Greek-saga like fights. Arguments that the entire city knew about, considering Freddie was prominent and so was Winnie that’s not at all hard to believe.

You can probably imagine WHAT some of those arguments were about? Maybe Winnie was caught with someone while Freddie was on tour or Winnie found out about the affairs in LA and all over the world. We all have to remember, Freddie “lived” in Munich when he wasn’t busy, but he was always busy. After finishing The Works Freddie went back to Munich with stop overs in England from time to time, but not enough to be a true resident and required to pay income taxes. Everyone says he lived in Germany, and yes technically he did.

But this was a man that notoriously spent most of his life in front of crowds and recording music. It was what kept him going. Though, I’m sure cocaine didn’t hurt either, but that’s not the point. My long in coming point is, how much was Freddie really IN Munich with Winnie from 1983-1985? I’m thinking it wasn’t a lot. At the same time he was recording his solo album, and went on tour of the far eastern countries such as Japan, Australia, and later would venture back west for the now famous Rock in Rio festival. In between all of this he met Jim, the first time who promptly turned him down, he was dating Winnie, and picking up men wherever he went.

Yeah Winnie sounds like someone super duper and treasured by Freddie. (sarcastic) Winnie was what one of my brother’s friends so crassly called it. His jumping-on mate. Meaning in Southeast USA his fuck buddy. Freddie hated and as far as I know never used that term. Though it’s become more of a “thing.” They had the commitment in name and Freddie was happy to have the label of hubby with anyone at that point. He was even said to brag that he was so ordinary he was married and lived with his spouse. Sure you did sweetie! Freddie was getting older he was approaching his late thirties and feeling as most human’s do (though I’m still not convinced he’s completely human) like this was his “last hurrah.” When a person knows their days of getting away with the same antics they did when they were younger come around most of the time the wildness gets cranked up a notch. A kind of last ditch effort to get it all in before it’s too late. In this case, before Freddie got bored sleeping around constantly.

The problem is the relationship he had with Winnie was certainly passionate, but it wasn’t a deep soulful connection by any stretch. Both of the two threw a few punches during their infamous fights and Freddie used Winnie’s apartment to entertain his guest from all over the world. The king always holding court. Winnie worked at his restaurant and would meet up with Freddie at whatever club he was currently attending as much as possible then they would go home and you know the rest. In that quote about tumultuous relationships Freddie had, Winnie is no doubt one of them. You never saw him in the 4 or 5 years he and Winnie were together, gush over how much he loved his partner. That is not the foundation that true love is built. Freddie was spinning out of control and he was looking for an anchor to hold onto and all of his friends did nothing but enable his bad habits. Paul Prenter got the men, Phoebe the drugs, and Barbara had the bar and club connections.

I need to make this point before I forget. Queen and Freddie Mercury were EXTREMELY meticulous and picky about their music videos. Some would suffer for the other’s vision (It’s A Hard Life) but the editing wasn’t something they took lightly. That is a known fact by all directors and musicians. Let’s review: all Queen music videos and there is only one of Freddie’s boyfriends in any of those videos. Jim Hutton is seen in not one but two of Freddie’s videos. Jim had to be a good guy because Winnie or Bill Reid or Paul Prenter or even Phoebe and Joe weren’t ever in one of the videos. That in itself should tell you how special Jim was to Freddie. Not only that, but it should tell you how much the other members of Queen who spent more time with Freddie than ANYONE of his lovers, all said that Freddie treated Jim like his husband in every single way that a spouse usually does. It wasn’t legal to be married back then for same sex couples and Freddie had a very traditional view of things and wouldn’t have asked his parents to attend a wedding between him and another man. But had he lived into the more liberated end of the 20th century and his parents were both gone I really believe that he would have married Jim.

I will admit, due to not knowing Freddie’s mind set about relationships when he was diagnosed, there is no way of knowing if having Jim stick around for as long as he did had something to do with him dying. The question of would he have stayed with Jim if say they had found treatment back then, and he had lived a lot longer? Honestly, we play the cards we’re dealt, there is no way to know. I don’t know Freddie all that well personally so I couldn’t tell you.

I do know some things, Freddie was loyal beyond all else. If a person was loyal to him then Freddie was loyal to them it was a given. Jim chose to stay and face whatever fate brought with Freddie, even though he could have left and Freddie most likely, would have, still left Jim something in his Will. Who knows? Jim stayed when he didn’t have to and he knew the man he loved was going to die slowly and there wasn’t one thing Jim could do to stop it or help him.

Peter and Joe at least could be a bit more help to Freddie, but all Jim could do was keep his prized garden looking good and he did more than that, he kept it pristine. To those who like to say that Jim was just the gardener or just an employee, they started dating seriously in 1985 there was two years that Freddie was healthy and in those years Jim kept his job as a hairdresser and his own apartment. Jim might not have been the smartest of men, but he had been in relationships and he knew given Freddie’s fame and money he could and maybe would find someone else and Jim had to have a place to go if that happened. Jim loved Freddie deeply but he wasn’t willing to completely invest in Freddie even when he still lived in Garden Lodge if Freddie would kick him out he would call a friend and stay there and it was FREDDIE who would come crawling back and beg Jim to come home. Which was the opposite of how it usually worked.

The newest Jim basher argument is that Freddie just kept Jim around because he had nowhere else to go. Well that’s crap, because in the later days of their relationship when Freddie had gotten it in his head he didn’t want Jim around anymore, who knows why? He had Joe ask him to move out. Jim signed a lease. He had an apartment lined up and though he was heartbroken to leave he was willing to do it if that was what Freddie wanted. Someone in some obscure article I found or maybe a blog. Looked for the lease records and Jim Hutton did have a lease that he then had nullified around the time Jim said in his book.

The next argument to debunk would be that Jim’s book is all lies. Okay, what? So you are saying that his abuse is evident in his book and proves that he was abusive, which is ridiculous. So that part you are willing to believe and twist for your own backwards argument, but anything good or any fun story that Jim tells is automatically him making it up. Jim was artistic and good with his hands. He wasn’t exactly Shakespeare or Melville. I don’t think for one second that a lot of the more crazy stories he just made up. I do however think that Tim Whappshott did embellish in some parts, but that the majority of the story was truthful.

The next argument is that Jim expected to be left the house. Are you fucking kidding me? Jim didn’t want the house. The house was a bunch of bricks and mortar. Without Freddie it was not a home. I don’t for one second believe that Freddie didn’t tell Jim who he was leaving Garden Lodge to and his money. I am almost positive Freddie never promised he would leave Jim anything. Yes, he built him a house in Ireland, but Jim had a binding contract that that was a mortgage loan to be repaid to Freddie. When Freddie died he of course dissolved that contract. Jim was as flabbergasted as anyone when he was left the money from Freddie. He didn’t expect it and he didn’t use a lot of it in the beginning. He had to use a good chunk to find a place to live.

Okay so let’s address this, I agree completely that Jim was harsh on the things he said about Mary at the end of the book. Surely there were legal hoops that contributed and Jim Beach had taken over day to day operations of the house itself until it was done in probate. Yes, it had to be unoccupied for probate to work or whatever. I get that. Yes, Jim was harsh and he comes off bitter, but so does Mary honestly.

Let’s put this in perspective. For one we don’t know how much Tim Whappshott embellished Jim’s words or wrote it in prose that sounded more dramatic than it was. There’s no way to know. Second, when you lose someone so loved and that you have been with for a number of years, you aren’t thinking straight. Emotions go haywire. Anger gets directed in the wrong directions. People tend to forget this book was published in 1993 which means it was 1992 the year after Freddie died when Jim sat down and recounted his memories to Tim. Writers who do things like this tend to ask leading questions to get details they can use in a book. It’s possible Jim only mentioned the move and feeling slighted a little at the funeral and Tim took it and made it like two chapters. We have no way of knowing.

My newest ridiculous favorite bullshit that everyone is spouting about Jim is that maybe he never had AIDS or HIV at all.

First of all, in 1993 there was still no treatment. So why the HELL would ANYONE lie about that horrible disease, in particular. Not to mention the public in general didn’t know much about it or how it spread so lying about that is opening yourself up to a lifetime of judgmental hell.

I can’t think of even one human who would purposely make their lives harder like that. It makes absolutely no sense. Peter Freestone says that on a lease he signed after Freddie died they asked him if he had been tested for HIV and he had, but he lied about it, because even just being TESTED could implicate you and get you denied for a lease. People with AIDS were treated about as well as people with leprosy in the time of Jesus. Everyone was scared of anyone who had it and until in 1997 Princess Diana (God, I loved her) went to an AIDS ward in a hospital and shook hands and hugged patients that doctors were treating with what was tantamount to hazmat suits due to not knowing how it was transmitted. That was the turning point when people realized the way it would spread and it wasn’t through normal physical contact. She took that risk and she helped a lot. She helped the AIDS movement for a cure move lightyears ahead, though not far enough, but still. So for ANYONE at that time to LIE about an AIDS diagnosis was fucking suicide!

As far as the tribute concert. I don’t remember if Jim went or not or whatever. Everyone acts like the band didn’t think Jim was special to Freddie because he wasn’t on their personal guest list. Let’s think about this one.

For one, that concert was arranged in only 5 months. The planning started only 3 weeks after Freddie’s death. Roger came up with the idea and was met with resistance from Brian and John at first, but when they saw how many artists wanted to come pay tribute to Freddie, they were on board. That concert would turn out to be the biggest line up of huge stars that the 1990’s would ever see, which also means the rest of the century. That includes the Grammys etc. Never since, has a line up of stars that big and that many of them gathered to champion a cause which is why another Live Aid isn’t really realistic. Yes, we have music festivals but those acts are getting PAID, those are paid gigs. This concert was solely about Freddie and AIDS charities, namely the Mercury Phoenix Trust.

I don’t know if anyone has ever planned a small birthday party? Say 20 guests were coming. The amount of planning that goes into just that small gathering alone will keep you super busy until the last minute. Now imagine the biggest stars in the world all coming together, with their lofty expectation, regardless of the cause, and for free and then making sure the audience is full and selling tickets.

First, you have to get a license to set up a charitable organization. Now, given Brian, Roger and John all had a lot of assistants and staff to help with the minor details. To set up a major charity though, the main players have to be there. Jim Beach was there in Mary Austin’s place. Mary was at home raising her very young kids.

That alone takes a ton of time and effort and paperwork and meetings and the list goes on. They had to plan how the money would get from ticket sales to the charity’s fund. There wasn’t exactly electronic transfer into accounts back then. To set up an organization of that magnitude takes mountains of paperwork. Maybe Jim Beach did a lot of it but he couldn’t have done it all.

Then you have to arrange with the artist’s managers and agents dates and times and travel, line up a venue, make a back up plan for weather, I think you see where I’m going with this. That was a busy five months, which is an understatement. It’s what allowed them to keep busy and their minds off their overwhelming grief.

Grief is a very selfish emotion. When you are in the depths of grief to that degree as the band would have been, you think about yourself and what would make you feel better. You see very narrowly and your priorities and sometimes your personality changes while in the process. In the crazy amount of time that they planned it. The huge stars that would be attending and how to arrange everything and sell tickets in only five months some things fall by the wayside.

Also, I don’t really remember Mary being there? So Jim wasn’t personally invited by the band, oh well. Not to mention a man with the disease would want to buy a ticket if it went towards that cause. Let’s just put it this way. Had Jim mentioned he wanted to come I’m sure it would have been arranged.

After Jim moved out of Garden Lodge, he bought a small duplex in London somewhere, and basically tended a tiny garden of his own, and lived in his constant state of grief. He didn’t exactly go paint the town. For seven years Freddie had been his world. A friend, a lover, a care-giver, a supporter, and a confidante. Jim lost it all and he lost it way too soon. Seven years in the life of a couple in love is very short and flies by. I think also, like many who knew Freddie, He saw him as larger than life and that there would be some last minute save and he wasn’t actually going to die so quickly. Like most Jim held onto hope to fight the despair that would consume him if he didn’t. The saddest part of it is, had the governments of the world who possessed the best technology not seen it as a “gay plague” and had it not carried such a stigma, it’s possible the treatment would have come in time. But the research was limited because though millions were dying, somehow society cruelly believed they deserved it, or brought it on themselves. These are the same assholes who banned the I Want to Break Free video, and shouted their ideas of homosexuality as a moral abomination. It was not a good time in the world to be gay.

In 1993 soon after Jim’s book was published the tide turned. A very popular male, heterosexual, famous, rich basketball player, Magic Johnson, contracted the disease and only two years later they had come up with a better cocktail to fight it and allow people to live a lot longer. NO ONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND, WOULD LIE ABOUT SOMETHING LIKE THAT! To this day, and TRUST ME, I know, if someone purposely infects someone with HIV without telling them it’s a crime that can send you to jail for a pretty long time, and requires a registry on the Sex Offender Registry, at least in the USA.

It’s 2021, they have drugs now that make it almost completely undetectable in blood and make it exponentially harder to spread it even if contraception isn’t used. They also have drugs that they can give you to fight it off in the beginning called prophylactics, which is what they give to doctors or others who may accidentally stick themselves with needles. I’ve done it working at a jail! Not fun! I am fine, but it’s scary as hell.

Even now it’s a crime, and we have all this medicine and decades of research to help. So no one would lie about it. Not to mention they didn’t have HIPPA laws about private medical records for people who had been tested. If this was possibly a real lie then someone would have been able to get their hands on a list or some documentation that said Jim Hutton wasn’t HIV+

That of all the shit they spew is what pisses me off the most. To say that he would lie to the public, his friends, his family, and everyone else in his life about something like that is INSANE! Everyone needs to STOP IT!

I’ve debunked the arguments with this concept called logic. These Jim bashers should look into it before typing anything on a screen.

Jim Hutton was so important he made it into the movie. No other of Freddie’s lovers made it in that movie and Jim wasn’t in it long enough. I believe beyond doubt that the Jim Hutton haters are just homophobic people who want so badly for there have not to been a special male lover in his life. They raise Winnie, the abusive ex who didn’t even speak English to husband status, and lower Jim to just a guy Freddie kept around. It’s easy even for homophobic people to cite Winnie because he basically disappeared off any Freddie radar we have after 1985 and Jim stuck around.

Like it or not, Jim Hutton was important to Freddie. Freddie loved him and Jim loved Freddie. Freddie also loved Mary. Neither of them are saints, but to discount Jim entirely is just basically saying that you disrespect Freddie a lot more than any book, or blog or whatever from Jim could.

To Love Freddie is to Love ALL of the people important to him. He was a smart and shrewd man, who only kept those around him who meant the most. So to discount Peter Freestone, or Jim Hutton, or Mary Austin, is to basically discount Freddie. How dare you do that when you are accusing people who actually KNEW him when he was alive, talking about him now.

News flash: Whether you believe in an afterlife or not, there is a reason people say rest in peace. Life has suffering and hardship, death does not. Whatever happens after a person dies, nothing that happens to those still living hurts them anymore. Yes, it can hurt the legacy of a person, a legacy that fans like me will do anything to protect.

Nothing that Jim or Peter or anyone including the fictional biography writers say about Freddie will ruin the legendary status he has. Nothing will diminish it 30 years later or 50 years from now. So everyone just CHILL! Freddie was a man of the present he didn’t worry about the future.

Presently, Freddie Mercury is revered now the way he should have been when he was alive, but that’s not the way it works? Only hindsight is 20/20 and only history can be analyzed. Freddie is in the history books. He did it. There’ s nothing that will change that.

I want to examine Jim’s first arrival in Munich in 1985. Freddie was supposedly in a relationship with Winnie. Barbara was the go-between for both of them, she was the translator, and someone to keep the spotlight of the press from focusing entirely on Freddie throughout their time in Munich. In that country she was as admired as equally as he was. Barbara may not have had the same level of worldwide fame as Freddie, but she was just famous enough in Munich to draw media attention away from Freddie and let him be as normal as was possible for him.

Freddie wasn’t normal. He never did anything normal. He never had normal relationships. They may have appeared “normal,” but none of us knows what it’s like to be a male homosexual Rockstar in the 80’s the time of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher two highly conservative world leaders. The gay scene was more free but you didn’t bring it into your mainstream life. You could go be outrageous and promiscuous in a club at night but you didn’t go back to your bus driver, or nurse, or whatever job acting the same way. It was still a judgmental and highly hypocritically moral based world back then. If you didn’t live through it you can’t judge it. Much the same way as no Gen Z’er can understand what it’s like to live without a cell phone, which I did for all of high school basically. Or to not have Netflix and have to use video tapes. You can’t judge a time if you didn’t live in it.

So Freddie was afraid to mention Jim’s name in interviews or confirm it was a “male” relationship? Yes, he was outwardly gay around people he knew, and flamboyant on stage, but the one thing he NEVER did was FLAUNT it. You have to remember there were people in society in these years and past decades that thought Liberace was a womanizer! (My mom *face palm*) To quote her, it just wasn’t talked about or even mentioned back then. It was seen as an act, not real life. I still don’t understand how you can see Liberace and not know, but I also didn’t live back then so I do my best not to judge. (1950’s and 1960’s)

Freddie fell in and out of love quickly; we all know that. Jim was with him in the hardest times in his life. It wasn’t a bed of roses or a pleasure cruise to watch this disease that Freddie didn’t deserve eat up his body and rob him of his sparkle. There is no way even a casual fan could have watched that and not been devastated, much less a man you are in love with.

Jim fell in love with Freddie when he was healthy and vibrant and in peak form. He fell when Freddie was at his best. Freddie was up to his usual antics as well. That’s a great way to test a true relationship. This wasn’t a relationship Freddie was used to. Freddie usually controlled the narrative of a relationship. If men left him, they begged to come back it wasn’t the other way around. If they started dating him, they used his money and status to their advantage. Except for when Freddie wanted Jim to be somewhere Jim didn’t get on an airplane and scream he was Freddie’s boyfriend to get VIP treatment. When Freddie was working, Jim didn’t cause a ruckus or pick a fight, or destroy a hotel room. He also didn’t let Freddie get away with cheating on him once things became serious. This to Freddie was a new kind of relationship. I bet he saw it as a challenge. He found solace and to him that was a new adventure, because it had never happened before.

Jim wouldn’t go anywhere with Freddie if Freddie didn’t want him to. My favorite new lie is that the Japan trip wasn’t a honeymoon, it was already planned so Jim lied about that. To be fair, it was planned, it was a little bit about business for Freddie, yes, but there were a lot of things that happened on that trip that Freddie did especially for Jim. It was important to him that Jim feel special on that trip and you can bet there was very few moments when Jim wasn’t right by his side. Joe would sometimes stay at the hotel room, and get things ready for events or whatever, but Jim went everywhere with Freddie. It’s the same behavior as a couple who have just gotten married. No it wasn’t originally PLANNED as a honeymoon, because the ring and the idea of being committed was a surprise to Freddie from Jim. Just because it wasn’t originally planned as a honeymoon, but rather a special holiday, doesn’t make it any less special or meaningful. So enough of that.

Say anything you want about Jim, but he loved Freddie and so did Phoebe and Joe. To say that he didn’t and that Freddie didn’t love him is just stupid. That’s saying that you can’t love more than one person at a time. I have a big family I love them all. I have a best friend I’d take a bullet for, and god help them if someone tries to come between her and I. I don’t at the moment have a lover type of relationship, but I have in the past and I was perfectly capable of loving all those people just as much at the same time. Freddie loved his friends the same way he loved his family. His friends were his family. Blood is not what makes you a family. I have relatives who share my blood who I haven’t talked to in years. but the truly important “family” in my life are the people who mean the most. There’s a famous quote

Friends are the family you choose.

Unknown

Think about all the people in your life. Is there someone that no matter their role you can’t live without, who isn’t your blood relative? Do you love them? Then why is it hard to believe that Freddie could love Mary Austin just as much as he loved Jim Hutton? They just had different roles they filled, didn’t make either of them any less important.

Peter Freestone was important, Joe Fanelli, these were people Freddie literally trusted with his life. He loved them too and he loved their company. Freddie didn’t just have employees. He wasn’t a true boss who will write you a reprimand or whatever. He was a friend mostly and a boss when needed, but he was perfectly capable of being both in equal measure.

As far as Jim, those roles weren’t equal. Jim was first and foremost Freddie’s lover, who just happened to tend to the garden, a never-ending job for which Freddie paid him.

It seems to me when Jim realizes how much Phoebe and Joe make compared to him and how much other gardeners made and he made less, it was because that wasn’t his main role in Freddie’s life. His main role was something you don’t get paid for, his main role was lover.

Freddie would never have let Jim make less had he been a “regular employee,” or “only the gardener who he occasionally sleeps with.” Freddie if anything was fair and if he was “only and employee.” Freddie would have insisted he make the same as his two other employees, but he was not just the gardener.

Freddie if anything was always fair. Even when you incurred Freddie’s wrath you either deserved it or his anger was about something else and misdirected at you. Those who hurt him knew why he stopped talking to them and cut them out. They knew they had screwed up big time, because being generous isn’t just about money it’s about forgiveness and Freddie would forgive his friends a lot. There were some things that were too far, like messing with his career by biting his hand before a concert, or airing his secrets on television and in newspapers for weeks for just 39,000 pounds. Freddie wasn’t spiteful. He never did anything out of spite. Anger is different, it’s doing things in moments you regret, but spite is planned and not tied to any emotion. Spite is a smaller form of revenge.

Freddie may play innocent tricks with people who pissed him off, such as when shooting a concert in Montreal in 1981 they wanted to edit together both nights, wearing pants the whole night one night and then to mess up continuity, wearing shorts the next. That is the way that Freddie would deal with people who angered him. Innocent ways of making life hard. Nothing ever spiteful! It was something he could not forgive from his friends. Freddie was rarely ever a hypocrite. He never expected anything from anyone he wasn’t willing to do or follow himself.

I understand wanting to judge Jim for betraying Freddie’s privacy. But he didn’t do it when Freddie was alive and it could have hurt him. Jim was happy with the time he got with him which was not as much as a normal couple. Jim wished he could have more of Freddie to himself, but he knew that a huge part of Freddie’s life was other people. He shared himself with the world and the public a lot, but Jim was happy with the time he did have. He was about quality time over quantity. A trait that NOT ONE of Freddie’s exes every had. They all wanted to bask in the glory and spend the money. Jim got that glory in natural ways that anyone who is with a celebrity gets. the opulent flights, the even minimal recognition, but he didn’t seek it and he didn’t do things to cause attention to himself when Freddie was in public or working. That is why he was different. It was something Freddie wasn’t used to, and in doing so it made Freddie want to spoil him even more. Freddie never liked the mundane and up until Jim Hutton his love life had been the same things over and over. Jim fought for what he wanted out of him, and Freddie in turn knew that in itself was unique. “You fought me you won me.”

Jim fought for a different relationship dynamic and Jim kept up his end of the bargain, a challenge to Freddie that he accepted and did his best to meet. In return, Freddie treated Jim like he was different and special because he knew this wasn’t Kansas anymore Toto.

I have a theory as well that one of the reasons that Peter and Joe pushed down Jim’s importance to Freddie, was due to the way Freddie usually was in relationships. They were used to Freddie’s hurricane style relationships. Jim was quiet and yes, they fought, but Jim would leave if Freddie went too far, something that none of his past lovers ever had. Jim and Freddie’s relationship was more subtle, and maybe not as easily labeled the same way his past boyfriends had been. Only Jim and Freddie knew how deeply they connected, because they did it in private and Jim stayed in his “place.” That was something they weren’t used to. To them if you were a lover of Freddie’s they expected tumultuous fights, and constant cheating and vying for his attention. Jim Hutton was happy with the time he got with the man he loved. He didn’t need to make a fool of himself because he didn’t need the spotlight, Freddie made him feel loved enough in private, Jim could stay in the background when Freddie needed him to and be secure in that.

Whatever is said in the book. Jim Hutton wasn’t insecure. Once he felt Freddie’s love he never doubted it unless there was a very good reason. It took him longer to fall in love with someone, but once he did it was because he was secure in the fact that person felt the same as it was with Freddie.

Years later in interviews, he even says he fell madly in love with Freddie, and Freddie fell madly in love with him. Jim may have not had book smarts, but when it came to love, Jim was little bit more secure than Freddie. It didn’t mean he loved him any less. Jim also knew that he wasn’t a likely choice for Freddie. He asked him why me? So yes, I understand the need to try to explain away why Jim isn’t good enough for Freddie, but love doesn’t choose based on smarts, or worldliness or money, or career, or fame.

There’s the adage, “We can’t help who we fall in love with.” In the case of Jim Hutton it might not have been logical, but when is love that’s real ever logical? If you know someone who says they love their S.O. because they are the right mix of everything material, that’s not love. That’s comfort or convenience. Love comes when you least expect it and it’s one of the most uncomfortable and foreign and scary things you’ll ever know, but also amazing and so worth stepping out of your comfort zone. You can’t tick off boxes and force it. Jim Hutton may not have ticked off the boxes of someone WE FANS think is right for Freddie, but no one would, and it’s possible that Jim did tick those boxes for Freddie’s view of what he needed. We will never know.

He didn’t need a constant reminder of Freddie’s love. He knew it was there, and he didn’t need Freddie to show it all the time. He waited his turn. That in itself made Jim Hutton good for Freddie because it showed him it was possible to find someone who didn’t crave the trappings of fame and could love him for just him and not his money or the power that fame brought.

Freddie loved Mary. Freddie loved Jim. If you love Freddie you need to at least respect them both. If not you are the one dishonoring Freddie’s legacy, because the people in his life while he was living it, was all he cared about.

Freddie’s legacy is love, and god-like talent, and crazily accurate intuition as to how to entertain people, amazing music, and all the things music, but there is however another part of his legacy that he left us and that anyone who demonstrates, “hate” on anyone he loved in whatever way dishonors, and that’s his legacy of generosity and love.

So next time you go with the intention to speak ill of Jim or Mary, remember that they didn’t dishonor his legacy in any way, including by writing a book after his death, but in hating them, you are dishonoring him and the generous and kind and loving man he was when he lived. That is just as important as any music. Those things, are what make him so amazing on stage. He through his performances shows you how loving and generous he is, so hating on the people that were important to him is what REALLY diminishes his legacy.

It baffles me the Jim Haters are still at it. What is it about Jim Hutton that upsets everyone? Is it so hard to believe he was just a decent guy? It seems harder for me to believe he was some master con artist that sponged off Freddie and duped him and his companions for 7 years. That seems to be far less likely.

One day in 1985 at a uber popular gay night club Freddie met a normal guy who he clicked with or if the haters are right, he met a master manipulator who turned him down at first and then didn’t talk to him for a while and then just happened to see him again at said nightclub and start his con game? Which seems more likely? Jim was a nice guy who, admittedly, had some problems, but let’s be real I love him and everything, but Freddie wasn’t at all easy to be with in a relationship as we all know, or that Jim Hutton was the greatest con artist who ever lived?

Freddie was a genius and he read people like books so he must be the greatest con artist ever to have tricked him for that long. Sick or not Freddie wasn’t brain damaged and he didn’t lose his power up until the very day he died. So damn, Jim Hutton was the best con artist who ever lived. Or maybe he was just a good person? Honestly though hard to believe. There are still a lot of good people in this world. A lot more good people than master world-class manipulators. According to Jim haters he was the world’s greatest con man. This comes from what I can tell is if not one person about maybe at most 5 people who buy into that unreasonable shit who I might add aren’t master con men/women themselves, considering they get reported for this horrible shit and then make up a new name and come right back to fight on the wrong side. Then we immediately know it’s them. Yeah we aren’t fooled. The Jim haters ruin all social media that has to do with Freddie.

To say that Freddie kept Jim around cause he was lonely? That says Freddie was an asshole even in the face of a deadly disease. He knew he most likely would have passed it on to Jim and gave him the opportunity to leave without any ill will. Then he just decided to keep him around cause he felt guilty? Seriously? What an asshole thing to do? If that’s true then it’s not Jim who is the bad guy it’s Freddie and that’s just not true and we all know it.

Jim made mistakes. Maybe it was wrong to write a book, but Freddie was gone it wasn’t going to hurt him and unless you are huge homophobe and understand zero about grief and the way it can make you act differently than you normally would, such as the ending sounding bitter, etc. I’d much rather hear Jim tell the story than some tabloid reporter, same goes for Phoebe publishing his memories.

I don’t think there was any ONE person who knew every aspect of Freddie’s life. Even Mary didn’t know about his behaviors of a more promiscuous nature during the NYC years. I think I read somewhere that she never actually saw Freddie’s NYC apartment in person. She saw pictures and since she was in charge of his money I’m sure she arranged for the payment for it. But as far as actually going there, I’m pretty sure she never did. Now, I am perfectly aware I could be dead wrong. There were a couple years there in the early 80’s where Freddie was too busy playing in the gay scene and having fun in NYC along with touring where except for the occasional flight to NYC or something Mary and Freddie didn’t see each other much. His outrageous “gay” lifestyle wasn’t really something he wanted Mary to share and it makes perfect sense.

Phenomenon

I sometimes wonder what went through the amazing brain of Freddie when he wrote the many songs. How did original melodies come to him? I don’t know if I have any original melodies in my brain. Every melody I can think of happens to have been taken from either one or more songs. The fact that it could still keep happening over and over for almost 3 decades. It amazes me. He truly was one of a kind and there will NEVER be another person so extremely talented in so many different areas. No he couldn’t cook or do laundry or most of those mundane chores the rest of us do daily, but his talent in things that no one else could do far outweighed the need for any of that. A person as extremely talented as Freddie Mercury should be immune from those everyday tasks. He has more important things to worry about. He had money to pay for someone else to do those things. He had Mary to figure out his “checkbook”, Peter to do laundry and make tea and other special things, and Joe to cook and do the same as Peter from time to time. Joe was also constantly aware of where Freddie was at all times in case he needed a car or a rescue quickly.

One incredible thing about Freddie was he couldn’t be defined. He was never “just” anything. He wasn’t just a singer, he was a piano player, composer, song writer, lyricist, and rock singing aficionado. He was a man, but also a caring brother and son, a generous employer, a fun and giving friend, and a witty smart public figure who seemed to always make a splash in any interview he did.

He could cause shock and awe or just sit quietly and picture a concert before he went on stage. He was a man who took pride in his work and never did anything halfway. The most amazing and rare part about him was he knew exactly who he was. He knew his limitations and his talents and he never stopped believing in his dreams. To find what talent God gave you in this life and your purpose during it is one of the most difficult things any human being will attempt. Rare individuals achieve it. Brian May thinking that Freddie didn’t care what people thought of his was not exactly true. Because Freddie knew his purpose and knew what his talents were he did his best and worked hard to use the talents he was given. He was human and he did care what people thought, but the reason the critics never got to him was because he already knew they had malicious intent and he knew he was talented. Whatever he lacked in training he made up for with hard work. He may not have read music well, or positioned his wrists correctly like a classical pianist, but I haven’t heard many Mozart’s or Beethoven’s coming out of the past couple centuries. The funny thing is Freddie didn’t need a school or accredited institution to train him. He trained himself in music theory through experience and hard work. If you ever hear anyone say that Freddie was not a hard worker they are a liar!

He worked hard, so hard that he was super respected by anyone who ever worked with him. Freddie didn’t need training, from the time he was little he was performing for his family and in a band as an adolescent. Once he conquered his shyness and channeled his stage fright into stage craft there was nowhere for him to go but the stars. He knew he was going to be a legend and as impatient as he was, he knew he had to work at it and that the timing had to be right.

When a person has such a certainty of what they’re talented in, and they work hard at it, there is no way that a talent like that won’t shine bright.

He worked hard, and he played hard. For all of those that want to fault him for his so-called “debauchery” (eye roll it was the 70’s and 80’s hello!) Every single minute he “played” he earned ten-fold in his work. One of the things about the movie that infuriates me is them acting like he was the one with the bad work ethic and would always show up late. When in fact there were for the most part no “set times” in the studio and the four world-class musicians of Queen were capable of recording their part of songs on their own. They did like to record together and did very much of the time, but it wasn’t ever Freddie who held up a recording session. He was never late to start a concert, unless it was another act’s fault and he did his job no matter what happened in his real life the night or morning before he never made excuses he got on that stage and he did his best and that is one of the main reasons that Queen was so legendary. Being hung over or sick wasn’t going to stop them from their main job, entertaining.

Freddie did what he wanted, but I think it’s incredibly hypocritical of anyone to look back on a time in our global culture and judge it when we didn’t live in it. Everyone gets so upset about Jim Hutton or Peter Freestone publishing a book about a man that they knew and loved, but what they don’t understand is that although Freddie was private when he was alive, he lived in a very different culture and time than we do now and even in the 90’s when those books were written. He was private to the public because he HAD to be. I promise you today, with smart phones and Instagram and twitter and the internet, Freddie no matter how much he may have wished it, would not have been able to be as private as he was in the 80’s and 90’s. A lot of what Jim or Phoebe wrote would have been found out in one way or another if he was still alive in 2021, but it would have been reported by horrible journalists who don’t do their homework and print whatever they want, true or not. Jim and Phoebe are human with flawed human memories but they wrote the truth as far as they observed it. Much better than any biographer who wants to connect Freddie to patient zero of HIV. So infuriating that damn book. Saying he was tested positive in 1982 when there was no TEST in 1982 so how the hell could he know? Also saying that insurance and blood tests were why Queen didn’t tour the USA in 1986, no that had to do with the rampant homophobia that was pervasive in the 80’s even though it was getting more and more okay to be gay, but only in “certain” communities. Brian May always said that Americans are just as kinky and perverted as anyone they just make sure they do it behind closed doors, in secret. Which is so incredibly true Dr. May!

All that hard work I talked about before and will talk about more later, no matter that being gay was legalized in the late 60’s (fact check?) but despite what you may think, it wasn’t something people advertised and in some places to this day in the 21st century it’s still not widely accepted. We are moving in the right direction, but we are not there yet. It’s becoming more and more normal, but as with any change it’s happening at a glacial pace.

The gay scene was a subculture in the world back then. Europe was always a little bit more open about things, than England or the US, but NYC has a culture all it’s own sometimes. What anyone who was either little (me) or not born in the 80’s doesn’t understand is being gay meant hiding in plain sight. Freddie worked too long and too hard to be labeled. Who is to say what he would have admitted today? Who is to say how his attitude about things he kept close in his private life would have changed in 2021 than in the 80’s? It seems the people most critical of any kind of “non traditional” 😛 lifestyle are the ones who forget hindsight is 20/20. Unless they have some gift of clairvoyance or like a very rare few can actually see the world completely while living in it, which is a very unusual quality, they aren’t using current beliefs and cultural norms to judge.

Privacy Then and Now

I have to write this though it pains me. All of you who want to hate on Phoebe or Jim for writing about Freddie, there is one fact that overrides anything you may believe.
Freddie is dead.
He is not here to be affected by anything that is said. I don’t know what it’s so criminal for people who actually knew the “real” Freddie to write about him and their time with him, but several tabloid journalists are given a pass. Especially the authors of the fictional Somebody to Love who literally just make shit up. Or Lesley-Ann Jones who writes like she really knew him but uses coerced or twisted witness statements to flesh out her story. What saddens me is that these two books are seen as the “correct and definitive” biographies. The reason that LA-J got that label? She put it on the cover of her book. That’s it. No one gave her that label, she gave it to herself. there is one author with the first name David Brett, who much like the Jim haters take snippets of quotes and things said out of context or paraphrased in different more damning wording and passes it off as the “truth.”

One such quote is supposedly from Mike Moran about what a horrible drunk Jim Hutton was, well I’ve never once seen Mike Moran verify that statement and once said he really hadn’t met anyone who had written a Freddie biography. So for all you haters who want to disprove everything in Jim’s book, why is that quote true when Mike Moran who “said” it doesn’t even verify it? Most outside biographers tend to weave revisionist history and story-telling techniques into their books to make them more readable and user-friendly and ultimately more quotable. LA-J a woman who met Freddie maybe 3 or 4 times in small doses acts like they were BFF when actually she was no more than a random reporter.

Nothing that Jim or Peter wrote is near as scandalous as most would have us think. Jim wrote about his and Freddie’s sex life because that is part of an adult relationship. He had to mention it or it would have seemed odd and as some of us (me!) sit and ogle Freddie’s pictures and drool over them we deep down no matter what we might say we in our minds want those salacious details. Let’s face it sex sells always has and there is no future that I see where that becomes untrue. Jim was respectful as much as he could be. He didn’t go into extreme detail about what happened in the bedroom and more details about things were revealed by Paul Prenter in his infamous tell all articles. Nothing Jim or Peter wrote was there to be derogatory . Yes, there are things that when I read them I thought should have been left more to the reader’s imagination but nothing in there was disparaging of Freddie.

For those of you who say you won’t read Jim Hutton’s book out of respect for Freddie’s privacy. That has zero to do with him and more to do with your feelings of what and who deserves privacy. I promise you that right now in this age of social media and cyber speed information privacy is becoming a myth. For us “ordinary” people we still have some semblance of it, but for a public figure the expectation of privacy is just a dream.

Many Michael Jackson fans have rant and raved over the accusations coming from people about him and how they are hurting his legacy. Let’s face it, he was always a bit strange we were just too stupid to notice. Yes, it may hurt his legacy, but it helps his financial legacy more than it could ever hurt it.

Those people who freak out, guess what? They watched or read or whatever’d the media before they raved about it’s authenticity. Michael Jackson is dead, no matter what people say about him there is nothing he can do to change it or anyone in his family can do.

Freddie has been dead for 3 decades this November and the worst that has come out about him was he was slutty and when gravely ill, wet the bed. I mean come on that’s so small potatoes to all the great things about him. So for all of you who bitch about Jim Hutton, go right ahead.

Everyone who knew Freddie, like really knew him personally while he was alive has said that Jim was a good man who made Freddie happy and Freddie himself said it more than once, so hate on him and judge him all you want. Jim Hutton is also dead and nothing you say changes the facts. So rant and rave and bitch and hate all you want, but in the end, Jim wins.

Mary got his house and his money and she was the person who he loved longest but they were platonic friends. She was very very dear to Freddie and someone he confided in about things he wouldn’t tell anyone else, but don’t we all have someone like that in our lives? If yours happens to be your significant other then you are doubly lucky, but for a lot of us even our spouses or SO’s don’t know EVERYTHING. I have a best friend from college who though we’ve drifted apart in recent years, I know more about her past than her husband does. Yes naturally he knows a lot about her, but different things. But I’ll tell you this they’ve been married for more than a decade now and he still doesn’t know everything.

With the lifestyle Freddie led when not making music, you’d never guess that naturally he worked his ass off. He knew when to work and when to play. There was no half measures. He said so himself. His work ethic is just as legendary as his musicianship.

The thing that makes him special I think was that he didn’t have one thing in abundance he had a ton of things in abundance. All musicians are talented at some things. Freddie Mercury was talented at just about everything.

There were parts of his life he didn’t talk to Mary about, and that’s natural. She had no need to know about his many lovers and his play time at gay clubs in NYC, that wasn’t important, but if Freddie needed someone to confide in she was who he went to. She knew a lot more about the soul of him than most but it doesn’t mean that others didn’t know anything. Mary knew his past and the present he chose to tell her about. His lovers knew about his present, but in that moment abusive or not, healthy or not, Freddie loved them. Jim did nothing but live his life as honestly as he could. He grew up gay and Catholic. That’s not easy. Catholic guilt is very real and it’s very present no matter how devout or not you may be. Trust me I know from experience.

He lived true to himself. Something that Freddie did as well and in that they both fit together well. Jim has said himself it might not have made the most sense to the outside world but there was something between them that no one knew but them. Freddie was happy and enjoyed the last years of his life and Jim was a huge part of that. So too was Mary.

I freely admit I jumped on the Mary hater bandwagon at first, but once I let my emotions calm down and my logic prevail I stopped that. This is a woman I don’t know. I have only second hand information, about either of them. The only thing I can go on is that someone I admire loved them and for that I respect them and acknowledge they were special to him.

Any Jim Hutton hater, no matter how much they protest is homophobic. Anyone who doesn’t read Mercury and Me and see, despite a lot of imperfections and flaws, a story of deep love between two people is seeing it through judgmental eyes.
To hate Jim Hutton is to disrespect Freddie. Not one person who actually lived with Freddie or knew him well says anything that the haters suggest. Not even one! How could someone possibly say that Jim was just some guy that lived in Freddie’s house? No one in Freddie’s life was unimportant and especially the people who lived with him and were with him all the time. Peter, Joe and Jim were equally important, but in different roles. Jim was his lover and his boyfriend a role that neither Peter or Joe could or even would fulfill (well not Joe anymore.) Joe and Phoebe both were super important to Freddie.

I know everyone cites Freddie’s will as proof of importance. Well if you want to use that argument, Joe, Phoebe and Jim meant a great deal to Freddie. They were specifically named in his Will when many others weren’t is proof of their extreme importance and his extreme love for all of them.

Anyone who wants to doubt Jim Hutton’s love for Freddie simply needs to witness someone they dearly love die of a deadly disease in front of them and they will know that it takes extremely deep feelings of love to deal with it. To be helpless when someone you love is dying and to be there for them is so extremely hard. There isn’t a word for it. Hard isn’t right, there is no word truly apt to describe the difficulty. Had Jim been just using Freddie he would have left when Freddie gave him the chance.

For anyone who wants to say that any of his other lovers were more important or whatever to Freddie, I know from all my research, had they been faced with the same choice, they would have left. Nothing that Freddie had to offer no matter how shiny or fabulous is worth sticking around to see a person suffering and dying right in front of you. To see a light in someone you love dim as a disease no matter what it is, die in front of your eyes is worth anything this world has to offer. Only pure love can get someone through that. It’s not something a “user” would be able to stick around to see. To say that Jim is that callous is to suppose he was a sociopath when no evidence of him being anything other than human and caring and loving exists.

Jim may not have been what others would have picked for Freddie. Some may not think he was good enough, but Freddie did and that is all that matters. In the last year of his life Freddie cut out a lot of people that he didn’t want to have to see him suffer. If he didn’t really care about Jim he easily could have bought him an apartment and moved him out. He trusted him and he needed him, like it or not.

No matter how sick Freddie was he was never a fool. He had the money and resources to cut people out of his life if he wanted them gone, no matter how sick he became, or if he saw them as unnecessary. I think a lot of his friends are a bit bitter over being cut off. I know Peter Straker is, and he tries to hide it, but Peter served his purpose of being the outrageous entertainer friend that Freddie needed, but though Peter says they were best friends, he wasn’t someone Freddie trusted around him towards the end.

Jim Hutton was trusted and in Freddie’s most close inner circle. Jim may not have known about every doctor’s appointment or medicine, but that was not part of his role. Because Freddie was fortunate to be able to find others to fulfill different needs, unlike most “husbands” or long time “lovers” Jim wasn’t saddled with doing it all. The fact that a person can be a lover and a nurse and a care giver all at once is almost superhuman. Yet it is done every day by so many. I have no doubt at all that had he needed it, Jim would have stepped up and done everything Peter and Joe did for Freddie, but he didn’t need to.

In Jim’s book, there aren’t super private things. There are still a lot of secrets and private times that he didn’t include, no one could include seven years of a relationship in detail of how it played day by day in a book. First of all, the human memory has a lot of problems, second unless you are gifted with an insanely good memory of which about a dozen people in the world and in history have, you can’t remember everything.

Let’s face it too, when a person dies, their flaws and bad traits are whitewashed and forgotten, and only the best things are what the human mind remembers. I know from first hand experience. As time moves on and a person’s grief subsides they can in short bursts remember some bad qualities, but that is soon forgotten in favor and to save our sanity by the good memories. Only trauma is remembered as clearly as happy things in average human memory. The reason you may remember an event is in some way it imprinted on your mind because of the emotion, good and bad, which it evoked.

I remember a lot of movies I have seen and TV shows. I’m very visual that way, but I can’t remember where I put my phone when it was in my hand ten seconds before. I can’t keep up with my remote. I don’t remember a lot of my significant childhood memories because I hated my childhood. Only the people I loved and the moments I felt deeply are the ones that I can recall and my memory is considered pretty good. So let’s cut Jim a break and Peter can we? Without either of them we couldn’t and wouldn’t know much about Freddie other than his stage persona and what the movie said, which was so off, that would be the true tragedy because he is such an inspiring and wonderful person, we all feel deep emotion when we learn about him.

I’m not a person who gets on the fan train. I don’t buy memorabilia, or really for lack of a better word, idolize anyone. There have been two things in my life that have lived up to that standard. The show Supernatural, and not because of the show itself, but more because of the fans and the stars and their personalities and true love for their fans, and Freddie Mercury, and honestly for pretty much the same reason.

Anything I have elevated to “fan” status in my life has inspired me in some way. Has possessed something that I was missing and that thing or person provided, or possessed a characteristic I greatly admired and wished with all my heart to live up to. I admire Freddie for so many things because he has so much about him that I don’t. He makes me aspire to try to find those things in myself and in my life. That is why I’m a fan. It’s also why I don’t understand blind fandom. I don’t understand K-pop idolization or boy bands or whatever celebrity. I’ve always been a person who wasn’t star struck. Even when I met the two main actors in Supernatural, I wasn’t all that star struck. Though I did admire them and they are extremely easy on the eyes, as is Freddie, I still saw them as human beings with a kick ass job. I’m not gonna lie, I’d love to be BFF with their wives or them or whatever and I’d totally name drop, but it’s because I’m human, but I also realized that isn’t realistic and that to scream about them or faint in their presence does nothing but make me look like a fool.

I never understood screaming at anyone. Do you expect that if you scream they will notice you and you will all of a sudden become their best friend or boyfriend/girlfriend? That’s okay for teens who are immature no matter what they want to think they are it’s not derogatory it’s nature. The human brain isn’t even fully developed until around the age of 25 and even then for some it’s later and for some a bit sooner, but it’s science.

To be my age, which I’m not old, but I’m on that hill if not over it and feel it coming like a freight train, and scream at idols is just illogical and honestly counterproductive. My BFF doesn’t really share my Freddie obsession, but she understands it. She doesn’t have to love him the way I do, though that would be a bonus, she just has to respect that I do, and accept it for all the ridiculousness it entails. That’s all I need from her. And for her to sit through a couple of my frequent airings of old Queen concerts and constant background music of Queen as I drive. That’s the only time she doesn’t get it. But hey no one’s perfect right?

So for all of you who hate on Jim or Mary or Joe or Phoebe. Freddie loved them, so if you really love and respect Freddie in an adult “obsession” way, like them or not you have to respect them because they were important parts in the story of the life of a truly remarkable and great human being.

In the end, he was god-like in so many ways, but he was just a man, he made mistakes, he did bad things and he did great things, but his legacy is safe. Don’t worry, no media or book or anything can ruin it, which is why I don’t burn every copy of the fictional “Somebody to Love or LA-J’s books.” I know no matter what they say about Freddie, he was truly a good person and that has been repeated and proven for the last 3 decades.

Freddie is more famous now than he was back when he was alive. I know it’s hard to imagine, but it’s true. I think in the end, if he is looking down, that is what he cares about, and that he still has so many fans of all ages and kinds and sexes and etc, 30 years after he left this world. So don’t worry about his “privacy.” I just hope that I can leave behind something important to be remembered by. A little piece of me left behind. That’s all I want and Freddie has that in spades. No need to worry Freddie’s legacy is safe and will continue to be.

POWER

For one, he was a good person, which considering his upbringing he could have gone completely the other way. He was never haughty which in rock stars in the 70’s and 80’s was not common. He never let anything take over his life. Phoebe says that without control there would be no Freddie Mercury.

Not only was he generous and kind, he was hilarious. He was one of those very rare people that could, to be honest, say something kinda rude and seem charming as hell. That right there is a very rare talent. He always knew exactly what he was doing when he was on camera during interviews. It kills me that people take his words on camera as gospel when that man who could write a number 1 hit song in 10 minutes in the bathtub, you think he can’t handle thinking fast in interviews? It was a persona that he projected. He had on his rock star mask in all on camera interviews, only with interviewers he knew really well and when he’d had sufficient lubrication via vodka did he sometimes let down his guard a bit.

Few men in the history of humanity can use the words darling and dear in just about every sentence and people just act like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He had that from the very beginning according to his schoolmates in boarding school, but even though they knew it wasn’t normal when he did it people just kind of shrugged it off.

This is a man with exotic good looks and let’s be honest (I love him dearly) but according to the rock star stereotypes or “mold.” in the 70’s and 80’s Freddie didn’t fit. Roger Taylor was more the typical rock star. Blonde and pretty. Freddie had different features, but they fit together perfectly to make this attractive and charismatic man who could captivate audiences like no one before or after.

The look he portrayed from the beginning was brave, and though, in fashion was daring as hell. This is a man, who though insecure off stage, when on stage had the courage of Hercules. He let it all hang out, and at Live Aid that was evident. Lol…. He had no shame about anything when he was performing. Had his clothes come off in concert he probably would have kept on singing and not missed a beat.

He was so naturally musical. It was like his blood was music. Brian and Roger called him a human metronome and the ability to be that way is very difficult and not really something that you could practice.

Though, Roger says in the beginning he didn’t control his voice all that well, he also says that in about two weeks he fixed that, and continued to get better and better as time went on.

He was one of those rare individuals that had this immense breathe control and knew when exactly he could catch his breath while singing. Have you ever tried singing an entire song loudly and in tune and been able to keep your breath perfectly? Now do it while running in a jacket in the summer. Good luck. Freddie did it, but that was him.

I don’t like the saying, “he held audiences in the palm of his hand.” When I hear it, I being so right brained and uncreative, while understanding what it means a literal picture of teeny tiny people sitting on Freddie’s palm comes to mind and I get a bit confused. The reason is how the hell do you control little teeny people when they are on your palm? I guarantee they aren’t going to do what you say though you are seemingly a giant and they are scared. I imagine a kind of Men in Black scenario with the aliens being in a little tiny marble or something. It’s not my favorite metaphor.

A metaphor I like better is like an army general. When a general is present in the military or a very high ranking officer depending on what branch of it you are in, you stand at attention and look at them with reverence. You hang on their every word and if they tell you to do something, no matter how insane the order seems, you do it without question. That, was Freddie. Freddie was our five star general and all we were were grunts and privates who obeyed his every command and looked upon him with that same reverence.

I once got screamed at by comparing Freddie and Hitler, (hear me out) I am not stupid I know they weren’t alike in personality geez! Even though he was basically Satan in human form Hitler could control hundreds of thousands of people who did whatever he asked without question. If you want an example of this type Nuremburg rallies WW2 into google and watch. In ONLY that way were they similar.

Freddie was extremely powerful when he stepped on a stage no matter how big or small. For a performer to control and command crowds the way he did is almost supernatural. It’s almost scary, honestly. Someone in a documentary said once that thank god he used it to get people to have fun, another example of his genuine goodness, or he could have controlled armies and had no problem taking over the world most likely. He didn’t want to invade with his powers he wanted to entertain and dammit that’s what he did.

There have been very few people in history with that kind of power over large numbers of people, and most of the time, the ones who did have that power, didn’t use it to entertain them. Though, Freddie said in some interviews that he was gruff on stage, he’s not, his love for what he’s doing and his kindness and generosity come out in his performances. Yes, he had bad days, and if you know what to look for you can tell his mood in those performances, though like a stain on a black garment they are very hard to see unless you point it out.

I wouldn’t have wanted to ever play poker with him, because his poker face was impeccable. I just have watched, like many with this obsession, videos of him in every form so many times that I can pick up the small details. Sometimes when you know the story behind a performer’s mood on stage you can pick out little things a bit easier.

I have seen some bad reviews of Queen concerts and let’s be real, they are all human. They loved to party. Freddie barely slept and if he could have, would never, and then had to go in front of an audience and do such a physically demanding performance. Yes, there were some concerts after months of touring that it seemed a little flat, a little like they were sick of it. That is just human. I have travelled to a few cities in one trip and I was so tired by the end of it I could have slept for months. I never wanted to see an airplane or bus again for a while. Now imagine, being on tour with the same people for months on end, every night doing the same set in whatever city you stopped and then getting immediately back on a bus to go to the next city.

Every now and then, they would have maybe one day off and rarely, a weekend and let’s admit it. Freddie could party! Until dawn and beyond, while many of us would have passed out hours ago, Freddie was still going. Now I know you can blame cocaine and yes, you can, but in order to keep the energy level Freddie did when he partied you’d have to do so much you would overdose.

I sadly, have “partied” using um….cough….substances too. No amount of artificial help can keep you from crashing and quickly. By the time dawn comes if you have been partying for hours, you can be hyped up on whatever, but your mind and physiological functions are running on empty. Many times, I would snap at people and cry for no reason though sleeping was out of the question, only very basic functions were possible like walking and sometimes not even that.

I think about the New Orleans party that is infamous and cannot understand how he got through it and then would manage to do ANYTHING the next day. They did a press conference the day after and though they all look bad and worse for wear at least they are making sentences and getting through it cause trust me no matter what you take, you need to sleep, but not Freddie. I remember being down for the count for a couple days after partying hard. There were nights when Freddie had partied all night into the morning and then would sleep a couple hours and get on a stage and blow us away. A good example is Milton-Keynes.

Even Phoebe said there were times that they would be holding him upright backstage and never think he would get through one song much less an entire concert, then he’d go out and jump around and have energy. Though he credited it to the energy of the audience, which makes sense, because that’s just a way of saying adrenaline. Which can make people seem superhuman, Freddie’s energy was crazy no matter what had happened before the concert.

The man had one of the most sensitive parts of his dominant hand bitten by his boyfriend before a HUGE concert. So badly that Phoebe wanted to take him to the hospital and he said, nah, throw a bandaid on it and let’s go and that night he did Milton-Keynes and KILLED IT. There are pictures backstage of him with his hand completely wrapped in bandages, but he didn’t even show one sign of the pain he was enduring. That would foreshadow what Brian May would say about Freddie and his suffering in silence and never complaining while suffering towards the end. The fact that he could sing The Show Must Go On while so sick shows almost superhuman ability.

Every time I hear that song, despite knowing that it was towards the very end, I just listen with my jaw open shaking my hand in awe when I hear one of the hardest lines he ever sang in one line of that song. There is some German sounding guy on Youtube who is a professional singer and is in training somewhere prestigious analyzes all of Freddie’s vocals and one of the lines in that particular song is said to be the hardest of all lines of all the songs Queen ever made.

I was in the shower listening to Queen as I do every morning, and started thinking, how the hell Freddie came up with the lyrics he wrote. I can barely rhyme and it seems like a fourth grader wrote it. Coming up with things like Beelzebub, Figaro, and Seven Seas of Rhye blows my mind.

I also was amazed at how he remembered the lyrics to the songs. I counted once and there are like 199 give or take a couple songs that Queen wrote and recorded and that doesn’t even count Freddie’s solo stuff, and Freddie rarely messes up the lyrics. How? I have will sometimes read the lyrics to a song I think I knew and there will be just one line or two that I didn’t get word for word, but Freddie never messed up. Not only that but he did it while commanding thousands and running around and jumping and being himself on stage. Really think about it. HOW?

There are many artists who will have the lyrics to some of their more difficult songs on the stage where they can refer to them if needed. I understand that they performed the same songs over and over, but Freddie is 90 percent of the time word for word perfect even on little things. Now there are a couple times he got the lyrics wrong but it always seemed to make sense anyway and seem right. It’s something that I can’t begin to fathom. It’s said he wrote Champions in around 20 or 30 minutes at the kitchen table in his apartment after he had heard Brian’s song We Will Rock You and that song is more complicated and genius than it may seem. The verse lyrics are amazing.

Even Roger and Brian marvelled at his creativity because they say they never saw him read a book, so where did the ideas come from. My theory is maybe as a young boy he with a mind like a sponge he seemed to possess remembered those things from school books he read. It’s the ONLY explanation other than just unbelievably divine god-given talent, which he also had in spades, but so did Brian and Roger, so for them to be in awe of him shows the level to which his genius really reached. Brits are known to understate things so when Roger says he had an incredibly fertile mind, multiply that by 1000 and add some more superlative adjectives and you may just start to touch on the extent of the awesomeness of that brain of his.

So let’s review, perfect looking in a non stereotypical way, which is so my type, exotic, commanding, incredible singing talent in all things that usually require training, with no training, and song writing skills that seemed to be inspired by God himself. I am not even close to finished in listing the many ways this man really shouldn’t have existed. So much of the things we all love about him cannot and will not be found ever again. That combination of skill and talent is ridiculously inhuman, and god-like. I started off to make a list, like with bullet points but just typed my little fingers off instead.

I’m going to quit for now while I still am able to string words together so that the quality of what I write doesn’t suffer. I don’t have the endurance of Freddie and Lord knows I never will or even dream of it. Though sometimes I wish I could channel it.

Okay guys. That’s all for this letter. I’m sure I’ll find more nonsense to type on a computer eventually, I’ll be back! Enjoy!

Love you Freddie,

Me