There were four silver trunks in Mary Austin’s attic that she packed in the mid-1980s and hadn’t opened since. It was too painful. Almost 40 years on, in 2022, she opened one. It was crammed with lyrics from songs written by Freddie Mercury – Don’t Stop Me Now, Killer Queen, We Are the Champions and, of course, Bohemian Rhapsody. She shut the case. It was still too painful.
“To say I was overwhelmed is an understatement,” she says. “I couldn’t look at the lyrics. I felt as I did when I originally packed them – that they were his personal belongings and I was being offered an opportunity to delve into them, and I couldn’t do that.” Eventually she asked her two sons to sift through the treasures on her behalf.
The original handwritten lyrics belonged to her. As does Mercury’s house, which she has lived in for more than 30 years. As does half of his estate, which has grown over the decades from an estimated £20-30m to around £150m. In the years since Mercury died, Austin has become extraordinarily rich, although she denies reports that her share of the estate rose to 75% after the death of his parents.
Many of Queen’s fans have accused her of hoarding his treasures, of making a fortune from the band’s legendary frontman without lifting a finger, of denying them and his family access to the most basic truths, including where his ashes were scattered. Meanwhile, Mercury appeared to regard her as the one person in the world he could wholly trust and Austin has quietly dedicated her days to him.
The relationship between Austin and Mercury is captivating. Over the years it has fascinated his fans, not least because she has so rarely talked about it publicly.
We meet at the Guardian offices in London. Austin has a beautiful face (when she smiles, she’s got a touch of Debbie Harry), walks with a stick, and is elegantly but unobtrusively dressed. Everything about her is unobtrusive. Austin is here with her younger son, Jamie, who is in his mid-30s and was born a couple of months after Mercury died in 1991, aged 45. Strangely, he looks a little like the singer, although Mercury is not his father.
She is about to publish Freddie Mercury: A Life in Lyrics, a book that combines the lyrics in their original scratchy form, photographs and her observations on the relationship between both the lyrics and Mercury, and Mercury and herself. As you’d expect of somebody who has guarded his privacy fiercely since his death, it is hardly a kiss’n’tell. Nor is today’s interview. But she is remarkably candid about their life together.
She and Mercury, who was born Farrokh Bulsara 80 years ago this week, were an unlikely couple. He was loud, flamboyant, confident and supremely camp. She was quiet, inhibited, diffident and conservative. He was a rock star in one of the world’s most successful groups; she was a shop assistant turned manager at Biba. He loved flashing the cash, whether to indulge himself or for good causes. She didn’t give a toss about material stuff. He was gay, she was strictly heterosexual.
They met in 1970, when Mercury was running a clothes and textile stall in Kensington Market in London after graduating from his graphic art and design degree. Austin was a friend of Brian May’s, and one day she was at May’s student house when he, Mercury and Roger Taylor were discussing possible names for their new band. May suggested Build Your Own Boat. Mercury proposed Queen.
“They asked what I thought,” she says. “I said I preferred Build Your Own Boat.” Did she really think that? “Oh, no. I thought it was a terrible name. But Brian was my friend. I’d just met Freddie.”
What were her first impressions? “I thought he was too confident for me.” She describes him standing by the fireplace, while she sat on the sofa, and I can see her transported back to the day. “He was full of bravado. I picked up a magazine and started thumbing through it because I felt I shouldn’t be there. Why was I sitting in a conversation I had no part in? Yes, he was very confident and I found it a bit intimidating.”
But they soon became friends and lovers, and within four months, Mercury had suggested they move in together. The idea might have been partly pragmatic, she says. He wanted to live in London and couldn’t afford a place by himself. So they moved in together and split the rent.
They bonded over their difficult childhoods. Mercury was born in Zanzibar, and at seven was sent to a British boarding school near Mumbai. Over the next seven years he saw his parents only once, Austin says. He came to Britain for the first time at 17.
Austin grew up with two deaf parents who struggled for money. Her mother was a cleaner and her father a factory worker. Her mother died when Austin was 15, and she found herself bringing up her younger sisters. Both she and Mercury felt they had been robbed of their childhoods. “Freddie could see the sadness in me that he felt within himself, and vice versa.”
She soon discovered he wasn’t quite as sure of himself as he appeared. “It was a mix of real confidence and bravado. I think the mix was to cover and protect who he really was.” Not surprisingly, Mercury was confused by his identity. He was born in Africa to Parsi Indian parents and spoke with an English plum in his mouth. At the time, brown pop stars were few and far between.
As a Queen-loving child, I had no idea he was Indian. “He hid that well,” Austin says. Does she think he was passing as white English? “Yes. He’d stay out of the sun because his skin would darken, and he didn’t want that. With Freddie, you just saw what he wanted you to see. He’d get stopped in the street by police and they said, where are you from, and when he said Bombay they arrested him, because they thought he was taking the proverbial.”
Did he speak Indian languages? “Never in front of me. His parents would speak Gujarati, but he spoke English back.”
Despite the band being called Queen and Mercury being outrageously camp, when I was young it never crossed my mind that he was gay. This was partly because he was going out with Austin, and partly because it was the glam rock era, when any self-respecting male pop star wore makeup, high heels and frocks.
Austin says she always had her suspicions, though. She makes her young self sound rather prudish. “We were walking down Kensington High Street one day, maybe a month after we met, and he pointed to an ex-girlfriend across the road and said, ‘Ah, that’s my ex-girlfriend, she’s bisexual.’” He stopped to chat to her. “And by the time he’d looked back for me, I’d gone. I just thought, mmm, I don’t know what that is, but it’s not for me.” You sound horrified, I say. No, she says, that’s not right. “I was intimidated by it. He apologised later. In all those 20 years I knew him, it was probably the only time he apologised.”
What did he have to apologise for? “I don’t know. I said, I think this is maybe not for me …” Even now, she’s not sure why she reacted like that. “Retrospectively, I can say he could have been on a fishing trip.” You thought he was testing to see whether you were bisexual too? She nods. “But I didn’t want a menage a trois. I’m heterosexual. I don’t stretch that far, you know.”
But she adored being with him. Austin had only had two short-lived relationships before Mercury. “He was different from the others. He was more creative. He was just more interesting. He was always thinking about going to see things. Not just bands. Like he’d go to see the film Cabaret over and over again. I loved listening to him explain why he enjoyed it so much. I enjoyed the journey around his mind. It was like reading a book. You were always on this journey with him.”
They moved in together in 1971, and were soon engaged. Mercury was desperate for success, which didn’t come quickly. “I remember him saying, ‘I am very mindful I am getting older to be a successful musician.’” He was 26 when Queen signed a major recording contract with EMI, and their second single, Seven Seas of Rhye, was a Top 10 hit. This was followed by Killer Queen, which reached No 2.
Austin says their relationship began to change. Mercury’s bravado was replaced by a genuine confidence, and he was becoming focused. Austin found she was servicing his needs more. “He’d suddenly say, ‘I need a piano. Where can I get a piano?’ … I’d say, ‘I don’t know, but I’ll try to find out.’ So, of course, I find the piano.” It was an upright the owners were getting rid of.
Did the piano change him? “Yes, there was much more purposeful energy. He would sit at the piano, play the odd key, hum a bit and he looked very happy. Transported.” By now they were spending less time together. When she was working at Biba, he would often be sleeping. When she returned home, he would be preparing for a gig.
They’d been living together for four years when Mercury said he had something to tell her. He struggled to get the words out. He said, ‘I think I’m bisexual.’ I said ‘No, Freddie, I think you’re gay.’” He didn’t argue. Was that a huge upset? “No, it was a huge relief, because I wasn’t sure whether we were travelling in the same direction any more. Some time earlier I saw a dress and thought, that would be a really nice wedding dress. I asked Freddie, is it worth me buying it, and he looked at me and shook his head. So I knew from there on …”
But this is what made their relationship so special, says Austin. She had been devastated by the uncertainty, and now she could reconcile herself to a different life. “We became better friends and it became a better relationship. I was six-and-a-half stone. I was really stressed. And suddenly I’m not stressed any more.” For 18 months, they continued living together. By now, Mercury was open with her about the men in his life. His first long-term partner was the show business manager David Minns, she says. “No, we won’t go down that road. We’re talking chaos here.”
Austin became Mercury’s PA, and Mercury appeared to think her duties included refereeing his tempestuous relationship with Minns. “There were arguments and fights and I learned to stay outside because I was aware of how chaotic the relationship could be. The longer it went on, the more distance I created because it was burnout time.” For you? “Yes, I mean, there’s PA-ing and PA-ing!”
What was life like as Mercury’s PA? “I became his girl Friday. Miss Reliable. His workhorse.” Did she resent that? “I’m not big on the ego. No, I didn’t resent it, because I’m very practical. I knew that if I didn’t work for him I’d have to work somewhere for someone.” Did she begin to feel more like an employee than a friend? “No, but if he had treated me as an employee I would have sucked it up, because I’d know it’s because he’s in a foul mood or annoyed with someone or maybe I’d done something and not realised. We’d be honest with each other. He once told me I was inefficient, and I totally agreed.” What’s the worst thing he said to her? “You’re inefficient.”
Queen and Mercury became a phenomenon. In 1975, Bohemian Rhapsody was released. Singles were usually three minutes long. This was a six-minute operetta with a nonsense story, and random references to Galileo, Figaro and Scaramouche. Queen were told by their management it was a suicide single. Bohemian Rhapsody was No 1 for nine weeks and became the biggest-selling single of the 1970s. The band were as unpredictable as they were successful, segueing from classic pop (Don’t Stop Me Now) to prog rock (Innuendo), heavy rock (Seven Seas of Rhye), opera (Bohemian Rhapsody), seaside ditties (Seaside Rendezvous), rockabilly (Crazy Little Thing Called Love), synth pop (Radio Gaga), disco and hiphop (Another One Bites the Dust).
Mercury had an astonishing four-octave vocal range, from baritone up to falsetto. Billboard voted him the third greatest rock lead singer of all time (behind only Mick Jagger and Stevie Nicks); ChartMasters ranks Queen as the second bestselling band of all time, behind only the Beatles. In 1985, when their popularity appeared to be waning, they wiped the floor with every other act at Live Aid. And, if anything, their popularity has increased since Mercury’s death. The 2018 film Bohemian Rhapsody earned almost $1bn at the box office, the highest grossing music biopic in history.
Did fame change Mercury? “It changed the shape of him,” says Austin, “but not his core. You can’t get on the bus any more, for example. The shape changes externally, but inside you remain the same. You have to. You don’t survive this business if you don’t, because your ego will just take over and annihilate you.”
Was he ever in danger of his ego taking over? “I saw glimmers of it.” When? She says it started when the band was being managed by John Reid. “They were travelling, they were successful and there were certain interesting conversations you overhear. ‘Why are we playing in a certain territory?’ I won’t say where, it’s so disrespectful.” Mercury thought certain countries were too small for Queen. “That was interesting to me.”
By the late 1970s, Mercury was frequenting New York’s underground leather bars and clubs. He then moved to Munich, where he reached peak promiscuity. He gave very few interviews during his lifetime, because he said the media portrayed him as an “ogre”, but in a rare one in 1985, he said: “I used to be just an old slag who got up every morning, scratched his head, and wondered who he wanted to fuck today. I just lived for sex. I’m a very sexual person but I’m much more choosy now than I used to be.” Two years later, he told his friend, the journalist David Wigg, “I’ve stopped going out. I’ve almost become a nun. I thought sex was very important to me … I lived through sex … now I’ve just gone completely the other way. It’s frightened me to death. I’ve just stopped having sex.”
In October 1986, the British tabloids reported that he had taken an HIV test, which he denied; he said he was perfectly healthy. Mercury had, in fact, tested positive, and six months later his doctors confirmed his HIV had progressed to Aids. He told his inner circle: his partner Jim Hutton, Queen’s manager Jim Beach, and Austin.
“He wanted to live his life,” she says. “It’s sad; you want to live life and then you realise maybe you’ve stretched the book a little bit too far and the spine is going to crack. Does that make sense as an analogy?” But she believes he was at his happiest in the decadent years. “I think he was at his freest in New York. He wasn’t being chased. In America, he could move from state to state. He could disappear when they were on tour. But he could also do that in France and he did it in Munich. Wherever there was larger acceptance of his sexuality, he was happy.”
Does she think he had any regrets? “He always said he regretted nothing. But you never know.” She stops. “There was a time when he said that he wished he could talk about being addicted to cocaine. He was talking to me about it, so I don’t know who he wished he could be talking
