It's been almost 16 years since legendary Queen frontman Freddie Mercury passed away, and now his bandmate, guitarist Brian May, has revealed more details about his final months.
May is releasing a new photo-based book about the band, called 'Queen in 3D' this week, and an excerpt from it was published in yesterday's Sunday Times.
While it is no secret that Mercury died of an AIDS-related bronchial pneumonia in November 1991, May revealed that he had also had trouble with other parts of his body because of the disease - most notably his foot, which he had lost most of.
"The problem was actually his foot, and tragically there was very little left of it," May wrote. "Once, he showed it to us at dinner. And he said, ‘Oh Brian, I’m sorry I’ve upset you by showing you that.’ And I said, ‘I’m not upset, Freddie, except to realise you have to put up with all this terrible pain.'”
He also added that Mercury did not often talk about his battle with AIDS. “He said, ‘I suppose you realise that I’m dealing with this illness.’ Of course, we all knew it, but we didn’t want to," he said. "He said, ‘You probably gather that I’m dealing with this thing and I don’t want to talk about it and I don’t want our lives to change, but that’s the situation.’ And then he would move on.”
