Editor’s note: This piece contains some strong language.

Author’s note: This short article is meant as an addendum to the main piece, “Freddie Mercury and Heroic Masculinity,” which covers the inspiring virtues of Freddie Mercury that the “Bohemian Rhapsody” movie left out. 

I want to quickly address some of the mistruths spread about Freddie Mercury by the Queen movie. 

“Bohemian Rhapsody,” released in 2018, brought Queen back into the limelight and created a new generation of fans. It had some good moments — Rami Malek’s acting was excellent (he was rewarded with an Oscar) and I personally liked the repeated beat of the Zoroastrian mantra “good words, good thoughts, and good deeds” (my mom cried in the theater during the scene where Freddie hugs his father). 

The rest of the movie was hideous. Aside from its horrendous editing, the film misrepresents Freddie Mercury by lies of both inclusion and omission. In this piece, we will briefly deal with the lies the movie chose to tell.

First, Freddie Mercury did not break up Queen because he was a diva and wanted to go solo. Guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor had both done solo projects before Freddie did. In addition, Queen never parted ways — as Freddie said at Wembley in 1986 in response to rumors that the band were breaking up: “Forget those rumors, we’re going to stay together until we fucking well die, I’m sure.” 

Second, Freddie Mercury did not meet his husband, Jim Hutton, by squeezing his butt. According to Hutton’s account, they met quite normally at a bar. I haven’t been able to find any evidence that Mercury behaved sexually inappropriately with anyone; I can only assume that the inclusion of this slanderous scene was projection on the part of the director Bryan Singer, who was himself accused of sexually assaulting other men and was fired before finishing the film. 

Third, Freddie Mercury was not cruel to bassist John Deacon. By all accounts, Freddie was protective of the shyest member of the group and always gave extra when recording the vocals for John’s songs (Freddie sang until his throat bled on “Another One Bites the Dust”). Perhaps Mercury could empathize with John’s introversion given that he was also famously quite reserved off the stage. One of the reasons Deacon turned away from the band after Freddie died, in addition to being tired from touring and wanting to spend more time with family, was that he truly viewed Mercury as irreplaceable. 

Fourth, Freddie Mercury’s relationship with Roger Taylor was not nearly as fraught with tension as shown in the film. Although the members of Queen had vicious arguments, many of these revolved around disagreements between Brian May and Roger Taylor while Freddie often served the role as a peacemaker. 

The reality is that Roger and Freddie were great friends; according to Roger, the person he was closest to in Queen was Freddie. Both shared a love for jokes and having fun, as evidenced by this video of Roger’s birthday bash held at Freddie’s estate. 

Today, Roger Taylor’s most prized possession is a massive statue of Freddie Mercury that he had installed in his garden. As Taylor said of Mercury in an interview: 

“If I could have one last conversation with anyone in my life, it’s got to be Freddie. I was literally on my way to see him, less than half a mile away, when they rang me in my car and told me he had gone. I just stopped the car on Kensington High Street, in a kind of shock. Because even when you know somebody is going to die, it’s still such a shock when they actually do.

I just wish I’d been there to give him moral support. That’s what he wanted. He liked his friends around. I think [the subsequent outpouring of love for him] has been terrific. He would have been so happy about it. But I just wish I’d got to say goodbye.”

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In short, Freddie Mercury was not the ogre the movie portrayed him to be. He had his faults – as discussed in greater detail in my main piece – but he was a far stronger, kinder, and more inspiring person than “Bohemian Rhapsody” painted him out to be.