{"id":610909,"date":"2026-09-01T06:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T06:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/610909\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T06:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T06:10:09","slug":"the-extraordinary-untold-story-of-freddie-mercury-mary-austin-on-her-best-friend-and-love-of-her-life-freddie-mercury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/610909\/","title":{"rendered":"The extraordinary untold story of Freddie Mercury: Mary Austin on her best friend \u2013 and love of her life | Freddie Mercury"},"content":{"rendered":"

There were four silver trunks in Mary Austin\u2019s attic that she packed in the mid-1980s and hadn\u2019t 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<\/a> \u2013 Don\u2019t Stop Me Now, Killer Queen, We Are the Champions and, of course, Bohemian Rhapsody. She shut the case. It was still too painful.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo say I was overwhelmed is an understatement,\u201d she says. \u201cI couldn\u2019t look at the lyrics. I felt as I did when I originally packed them \u2013 that they were his personal belongings and I was being offered an opportunity to delve into them, and I couldn\u2019t do that.\u201d Eventually she asked her two sons to sift through the treasures on her behalf.<\/p>\n

The original handwritten lyrics belonged to her. As does Mercury\u2019s 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 \u00a320-30m to around \u00a3150m. 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.<\/p>\n

Mary Austin \u2026 \u2018I\u2019m not big on the ego.\u2019 Photograph: Linda Nylind\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Many of Queen\u2019s fans have accused her of hoarding his treasures, of making a fortune from the band\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

We meet at the Guardian offices in London. Austin has a beautiful face (when she smiles, she\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019d expect of somebody who has guarded his privacy fiercely since his death, it is hardly a kiss\u2019n\u2019tell. Nor is today\u2019s interview. But she is remarkably candid about their life together.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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\u2019t give a toss about material stuff. He was gay, she was strictly heterosexual.<\/p>\n

Mercury in January 1977. \u2018I thought he was too confident for me,\u2019 says Austin. Photograph: Ian Dickson\/Redferns<\/p>\n

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\u2019s, and one day she was at May\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey asked what I thought,\u201d she says. \u201cI said I preferred Build Your Own Boat.\u201d Did she really think that? \u201cOh, no. I thought it was a terrible name. But Brian was my friend. I\u2019d just met Freddie.\u201d<\/p>\n

What were her first impressions? \u201cI thought he was too confident for me.\u201d She describes him standing by the fireplace, while she sat on the sofa, and I can see her transported back to the day. \u201cHe was full of bravado. I picked up a magazine and started thumbing through it because I felt I shouldn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019t afford a place by himself. So they moved in together and split the rent.<\/p>\n

The early days \u2026 Austin and Mercury in 1971. Photograph: Courtesy of Mary Austin<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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. \u201cFreddie could see the sadness in me that he felt within himself, and vice versa.\u201d<\/p>\n

She soon discovered he wasn\u2019t quite as sure of himself as he appeared. \u201cIt was a mix of real confidence and bravado. I think the mix was to cover and protect who he really was.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

As a Queen-loving child, I had no idea he was Indian. \u201cHe hid that well,\u201d Austin says. Does she think he was passing as white English? \u201cYes. He\u2019d stay out of the sun because his skin would darken, and he didn\u2019t want that. With Freddie, you just saw what he wanted you to see. He\u2019d 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Austin and Mercury with Queen\u2019s John Deacon, Roger Taylor and Brian May sitting behind them, at Kempton Park racecourse to promote their album A Day at the Races, 1976. Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Did he speak Indian languages? \u201cNever in front of me. His parents would speak Gujarati, but he spoke English back.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Austin says she always had her suspicions, though. She makes her young self sound rather prudish. \u201cWe 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, \u2018Ah, that\u2019s my ex-girlfriend, she\u2019s bisexual.\u2019\u201d He stopped to chat to her. \u201cAnd by the time he\u2019d looked back for me, I\u2019d gone. I just thought, mmm, I don\u2019t know what that is, but it\u2019s not for me.\u201d You sound horrified, I say. No, she says, that\u2019s not right. \u201cI was intimidated by it. He apologised later. In all those 20 years I knew him, it was probably the only time he apologised.\u201d<\/p>\n

What did he have to apologise for? \u201cI don\u2019t know. I said, I think this is maybe not for me \u2026\u201d Even now, she\u2019s not sure why she reacted like that. \u201cRetrospectively, I can say he could have been on a fishing trip.\u201d You thought he was testing to see whether you were bisexual too? She nods. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t want a menage a trois. I\u2019m heterosexual. I don\u2019t stretch that far, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mercury and Austin in 1975. Photograph: Courtesy of Mary Austin<\/p>\n

But she adored being with him. Austin had only had two short-lived relationships before Mercury. \u201cHe 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\u2019d 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

They moved in together in 1971, and were soon engaged. Mercury was desperate for success, which didn\u2019t come quickly. \u201cI remember him saying, \u2018I am very mindful I am getting older to be a successful musician.\u2019\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Austin says their relationship began to change. Mercury\u2019s bravado was replaced by a genuine confidence, and he was becoming focused. Austin found she was servicing his needs more. \u201cHe\u2019d suddenly say, \u2018I need a piano. Where can I get a piano?\u2019 \u2026 I\u2019d say, \u2018I don\u2019t know, but I\u2019ll try to find out.\u2019 So, of course, I find the piano.\u201d It was an upright the owners were getting rid of.<\/p>\n

Mercury\u2019s piano and stage outfits were among his personal items displayed at Sotheby\u2019s auction house in London in September 2023. Photograph: Tristan Fewings\/Getty Images for Sotheby\u2019s<\/p>\n

Did the piano change him? \u201cYes, 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.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

They\u2019d been living together for four years when Mercury said he had something to tell her. He struggled to get the words out. He said, \u2018I think I\u2019m bisexual.\u2019 I said \u2018No, Freddie, I think you\u2019re gay.\u2019\u201d He didn\u2019t argue. Was that a huge upset? \u201cNo, it was a huge relief, because I wasn\u2019t 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 \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

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. \u201cWe became better friends and it became a better relationship. I was six-and-a-half stone. I was really stressed. And suddenly I\u2019m not stressed any more.\u201d 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. \u201cNo, we won\u2019t go down that road. We\u2019re talking chaos here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Austin in 1984 \u2026 \u2018I became Freddie\u2019s girl Friday. Miss Reliable.\u2019 Photograph: Rogers\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Austin became Mercury\u2019s PA, and Mercury appeared to think her duties included refereeing his tempestuous relationship with Minns. \u201cThere 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.\u201d For you? \u201cYes, I mean, there\u2019s PA-ing and PA-ing!\u201d<\/p>\n

What was life like as Mercury\u2019s PA? \u201cI became his girl Friday. Miss Reliable. His workhorse.\u201d Did she resent that? \u201cI\u2019m not big on the ego. No, I didn\u2019t resent it, because I\u2019m very practical. I knew that if I didn\u2019t work for him I\u2019d have to work somewhere for someone.\u201d Did she begin to feel more like an employee than a friend? \u201cNo, but if he had treated me as an employee I would have sucked it up, because I\u2019d know it\u2019s because he\u2019s in a foul mood or annoyed with someone or maybe I\u2019d done something and not realised. We\u2019d be honest with each other. He once told me I was inefficient, and I totally agreed.\u201d What\u2019s the worst thing he said to her? \u201cYou\u2019re inefficient.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019t 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).<\/p>\n

Austin with Mercury at his 38th birthday party, 5 September 1984. Photograph: Alan Davidson\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

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\u2019s death. The 2018 film Bohemian Rhapsody earned almost $1bn at the box office, the highest grossing music biopic in history.<\/p>\n

Did fame change Mercury? \u201cIt changed the shape of him,\u201d says Austin, \u201cbut not his core. You can\u2019t get on the bus any more, for example. The shape changes externally, but inside you remain the same. You have to. You don\u2019t survive this business if you don\u2019t, because your ego will just take over and annihilate you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Was he ever in danger of his ego taking over? \u201cI saw glimmers of it.\u201d When? She says it started when the band was being managed by John Reid. \u201cThey were travelling, they were successful and there were certain interesting conversations you overhear. \u2018Why are we playing in a certain territory?\u2019 I won\u2019t say where, it\u2019s so disrespectful.\u201d Mercury thought certain countries were too small for Queen. \u201cThat was interesting to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the late 1970s, Mercury was frequenting New York\u2019s 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 \u201cogre\u201d, but in a rare one in 1985, he said: \u201cI 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\u2019m a very sexual person but I\u2019m much more choosy now than I used to be.\u201d Two years later, he told his friend, the journalist David Wigg, \u201cI\u2019ve stopped going out. I\u2019ve almost become a nun. I thought sex was very important to me \u2026 I lived through sex \u2026 now I\u2019ve just gone completely the other way. It\u2019s frightened me to death. I\u2019ve just stopped having sex.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mercury and Austin in 1985. Photograph: Trinity Mirror\/Mirrorpix\/Alamy<\/p>\n

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\u2019s manager Jim Beach, and Austin.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wanted to live his life,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s sad; you want to live life and then you realise maybe you\u2019ve stretched the book a little bit too far and the spine is going to crack. Does that make sense as an analogy?\u201d But she believes he was at his happiest in the decadent years. \u201cI think he was at his freest in New York. He wasn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does she think he had any regrets? \u201cHe always said he regretted nothing. But you never know.\u201d She stops. \u201cThere 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\u2019t know who he wished he could be talking to. I think he was actually thinking aloud. This was way before New York, and the excesses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did the cocaine change him? \u201cNo, I was amazed. I didn\u2019t do it. But I used to watch people and think, how d\u2019you do it? How d\u2019you drink to the excess that you drink?\u201d Did he drink a lot? \u201cYeah.\u201d And did she ever take drugs? \u201cNo. Well, I did puff on a spliff once.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mercury was fantastically creative in his final years. There was his 1988 operatic collaboration with Montserrat Caball\u00e9, Barcelona; Innuendo, the final Queen album released in his lifetime, in 1991; and the posthumous album, Made in Heaven, in 1995. Mercury was living with Hutton at Garden Lodge in Kensington, a house originally built for the painter Cecil Rea and his wife, the sculptor Constance Halford. He adored the house and its Japanese-style gardens. Austin lived less than a mile away, and she had made sure Garden Lodge was just how he wanted it.<\/p>\n

A couple of years before Mercury died, when Austin was almost 40, she had her first son Richard with her then partner. Mercury became Richard\u2019s godfather. I ask if he doted on him. \u201cWell, he knew he had Aids, and he felt he should never touch Richard, go near him, because there was so little known about the virus at the time.\u201d She didn\u2019t share the anxiety, she says. When Mercury was dying, Austin was pregnant with her second son, Jamie. \u201cI was there next to his bed, I was holding his hand, I was doing whatever I needed to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Austin and Mercury at a Queen party at Kensington Roof Gardens, London, July 1986. Photograph: Trinity Mirror\/Mirrorpix\/Alamy<\/p>\n

There have been numerous books written about Mercury. One published last year suggested he had a secret daughter who subsequently died. Austin is not convinced. \u201cHe never told me he had a daughter, and I can\u2019t imagine him ever keeping that secret.\u201d She giggles. \u201cSorry!\u201d<\/p>\n

The press was merciless towards the end. \u201cThe British media had a huge impact, and sculpted the way he lived his life,\u201d Austin says. \u201cThere were photographers outside Garden Lodge and I remember a bike was coming through to collect their film, and the courier asked if there was any news, and someone shouted, \u2018No, he\u2019s not dead yet.\u2019\u201d How long was this before he died? \u201cTwo weeks maybe. They were waiting, vulture-like. They\u2019d wait for him when he had doctors\u2019 appointments and had to leave the house. Freddie needed decoys. It got chaotic.\u201d<\/p>\n

A day before he died, Mercury issued a press release saying he had Aids. It would have been easy for him to say he had pneumonia. Although he had lied about it before, he wanted his legacy to be an acceptance of and support for people with Aids.<\/p>\n

As for Austin, she split up with the father of her boys before Jamie was born. She later married, but that didn\u2019t last. Does she think her love for Mercury affected her relationships with other men? \u201cI think I have bad taste,\u201d she says. Has she ever chosen well? \u201cPost Freddie, no.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can she remember the last words he said to her? Silence. Eventually she answers. \u201cI was holding his hand. He was on morphine and in and out of consciousness, and he falls back to sleep. And I stand there for quite a while and he finally comes round again and he just said, \u2018My old faithful.\u2019 So I felt a bit like a dog. I wasn\u2019t flattered.\u201d She laughs. It\u2019s one of the saddest laughs I\u2019ve heard.<\/p>\n

Had he ever told her he loved her? \u201cNo. No, he was not a man who \u2026 He bought things.\u201d Did she believe him when he said he had written the song Love of My Life for her? No, she says, that\u2019s apocryphal. \u201cHe never said it was about me. He wrote Lily of the Valley about me.\u201d Lily of the Valley is a much more gnomic song about his changing sexuality and relationship with Austin. I ask whether he was the love of her life. \u201cI think I can say, in retrospect, so far, yes, he is the love of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mercury might not have told Austin he loved her, but in a 1985 interview, he said: \u201cThe only friend I\u2019ve got is Mary, and I don\u2019t want anybody else. We believe in each other, that\u2019s enough for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mary Austin \u2026 \u2018Freddie could see the sadness in me that he felt within himself, and vice versa.\u2019 Photograph: Linda Nylind\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

He called Austin his common-law wife and, years before he died, told her that she would inherit the house and 50% of his fortune and future royalties. She told him flat out she didn\u2019t want Garden Lodge. \u201cI said, I don\u2019t want the house, I\u2019ve worked hard for you to live in this. And he said, if everything had gone to plan you would have been my wife, and this would have been rightly yours.\u201d Ultimately, she says, she felt it was her duty to accept the inheritance.<\/p>\n

Does she think he did it out of love or as an apology? She cringes. \u201cI don\u2019t know. There\u2019s more on that list than you realise, I\u2019m afraid.\u201d Such as? \u201cOh, lots.\u201d Guilt? \u201cCould be, but I think not. If you put your thinking cap on, you\u2019ll get there.\u201d<\/p>\n

I think Austin may mean that it was his payback for her discretion. (A former partner and manager, Paul Prenter, was fired by Mercury and sold his story to the Sun.) And perhaps Mercury left her so much because she was the only person he could trust to carry out his final wishes. He insisted he didn\u2019t want the house turned into a museum. \u201cBack in the day, museums were very dusty and stuffy and he didn\u2019t see himself as dusty and stuffy.\u201d And he didn\u2019t want anybody to know where his ashes had been scattered. Austin will take that secret to her grave.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been the cause of much friction. Not least between her and Mercury\u2019s surviving family. \u201cI think if I was Freddie\u2019s parents, Freddie\u2019s sister, and I wasn\u2019t allowed to know where his ashes have been scattered, I would be upset and offended, but that\u2019s the job he asked me to do. And I did it. I kept saying to them, \u2018I\u2019m really, really sorry \u2013 I can\u2019t tell you.\u2019\u201d Did they accept that? \u201cHis mother did, yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Austin says she struggled so much after Mercury\u2019s death. \u201cIt took me a long time to get over the moment of death \u2013 that transition between, you\u2019re going to die, to the day he does die, to the day after, to the week after, to the month after. That\u2019s for me, emotionally, how it went. But because I was pregnant, I realised, I can\u2019t do this to my child. I\u2019ve got to do whatever I need to do, and I used that to defer any pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mercury with Austin at the Ivor Novello awards in 1987, where Queen won the \u2018outstanding contribution to British music\u2019 category. Photograph: Mirrorpix\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t simply his death that traumatised her \u2013 the will led to a lot of antagonism. Hutton was left \u00a3500,000 by Mercury and told he would have to leave Garden Lodge after three months so Austin could move in. He claimed Mercury had told him he could continue living there and resented Austin; in 2010, he died of lung cancer. Today, Austin says she didn\u2019t have any choice. \u201cIt had nothing to do with me. It was all down to the executors of the will.\u201d Despite her reluctance to move into Garden Lodge, it gave her huge comfort. \u201cI could still be with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The subsequent years have been fairly solitary, though, she says. While Mercury had many social circles, she says she has never had any. \u201cI\u2019m a loner. I keep myself company.\u201d Has she enjoyed her own company? \u201cYes, but now I\u2019m getting much older, I\u2019m getting bored with it. I get bored with fixating on how my back hurts and I\u2019ve got to find another physio, because it\u2019s not living life any more.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, Austin got her sons and Sotheby\u2019s to empty the silver trunks, assess the value of Mercury\u2019s belongings and prepare for auction. Austin thought, this way, his true fans would end up with his treasures. But that\u2019s not how it worked out. Much of it went to the super-rich, who simply regard it as an investment. The auction raised \u00a340m, and again fans suggested Austin was just in it for herself. Does that bother her? \u201cNo, they have a right to their opinion. But I\u2019m 75, I\u2019m going to die. And I looked at everything in the house, and I looked at my boys, and I thought, this is going to be a burden for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mercury\u2019s handwritten lyrics for the Queen song Bohemian Rhapsody, which Austin discovered in a silver trunk in her attic. Photograph: Sotheby\u2019s \/ Queen Music Ltd – Sony Music Publishing UK Ltd<\/p>\n

She says she has no regrets about selling his collection, but others are not so positive. It was reported that Mercury\u2019s sister, Kashmira, anonymously spent \u00a33m buying back family mementoes. Austin says she doesn\u2019t know if this is true, but the thought saddens her. \u201cWe did reach out to her before the sale to see if she wanted anything.\u201d She says their relationship is delicate, and she hopes it\u2019s recovering.<\/p>\n

As for the house \u2013 which, until the Sotheby\u2019s auction, was largely unchanged since Mercury had lived in it \u2013 she now realises he understood how important it would be to her. \u201cI lived in the house which he wanted me to live in and explored it for 20 years. The house was full of him; the memories. He realised how much I loved him, and how much I would need that house.\u201d But now, she says, it\u2019s time to move on. Garden Lodge is on sale for \u00a330m. She hopes it goes to a family with children who will enjoy it as much as she and her boys have.<\/p>\n

Has the inheritance been a blessing or a curse? \u201cMostly, it\u2019s been really difficult.\u201d What\u2019s the most extravagant thing she has bought herself? Nothing really, she says. \u201cI bought my husband two Ferraris,\u201d she says, with contempt. He asked for a second? \u201cYeah. And I was like, you can have it, but you have to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Initially, after the trunks were opened, her sons and Sotheby\u2019s trawled through them. But gradually she overcame her aversion, and once she found herself able to look, she couldn\u2019t turn away. Not only were the lyrics significant pop historical documents, she realised she could contextualise them, because she was there when most were written. If she was going to sell off his collection, she would make sure there was something for the fans, by publishing a book.<\/p>\n

How did her boys feel about going through Mercury\u2019s possessions? Astonished, she says. This is where the story gets really strange. \u201cThe boys had no idea till they were in their late 20s.\u201d They had no idea how much he had left or its value? No, she says, they had no idea of anything. \u201cThey knew nothing about Queen, because I never told them. I never told them about Freddie. Ask Jamie when you see him. Ask him when he first realised.\u201d Jamie is in another room, looking after her clothes for the photoshoot, while we chat.<\/p>\n

Austin at Mercury\u2019s funeral in November 1991. Photograph: Trinity Mirror\/Mirrorpix\/Alamy<\/p>\n

So how did he think they had got the money to buy the house? \u201cJamie thought we\u2019d inherited the house from his great-grandfather.\u201d Because you told him that? \u201cNo, he made it up. When he was young, he brought his friend to the house. In my head I can see them close to the piano, mid-conversation, photographs are on the piano, and Jamie is telling his friend, \u2018Yes, the house used to belong to my great-grandfather.\u2019 And I thought, wherever did you get that from?\u201d<\/p>\n

Were there no pictures of Freddie in the house? \u201cThere were, on the piano, but Jamie never asked. Nobody asked. They were just there.\u201d Did the boys know anything about the inheritance? \u201cNo.\u201d At what point did she tell them that she had inherited Mercury\u2019s house and money and he was the love of her life? How did that conversation go? \u201cIt never did. I never talk to them about money. Money goes into the bank account if you need to pay for anything.\u201d Have the boys got Ferraris? \u201cNo, my eldest has got a third-hand Mini that used to be mine, then Jamie\u2019s, because he\u2019s really sentimental, and Jamie and I share a Tesla.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did she not think she was keeping something important from them? \u201cNo, because they were young boys growing into teenagers and young men. I\u2019ve read so many psychology books about young boys and how many hormone changes they go through and how complex they are, and I thought, you have to enjoy your life. Your childhood is key to who you are.\u201d It seems she is thinking back to her childhood and Mercury\u2019s.<\/p>\n

When did Jamie realise it was Mercury\u2019s house? \u201cHe\u2019s 34 now. He had no idea till pre-Sotheby\u2019s auction discussions four years ago, when I realised I had to tell him.\u201d Was he gobsmacked? \u201cYou ask him.\u201d Did he know about Queen? \u201cI don\u2019t know. Ask him.\u201d Did he listen to their music? \u201cI haven\u2019t even asked him that question. I just didn\u2019t want him to grow up being anybody else other than himself. I\u2019d lived around Freddie, and how d\u2019you ever describe anyone like Freddie? It takes a lifetime. And it took my lifetime, even though he\u2019s been dead for so much of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t seem healthy to me to live guarding such a massive secret from your children. Does she think it screwed her up? \u201cNo, because talking about him used to make me cry. Why would I do that to make myself upset?\u201d<\/p>\n

Cloak and swagger \u2026 the free exhibition of Mercury\u2019s personal collection at Sotheby\u2019s, London, September 2023. Photograph: Tristan Fewings\/Getty Images for Sotheby\u2019s<\/p>\n

I ask who will inherit the money when she dies, expecting her to reel off a list of charities. But she doesn\u2019t. \u201cIt\u2019s going to go to my children, and it will find its way as it normally does \u2013 death duties, and the tax man.\u201d Will much of it go to charity? \u201cA good tranche goes to Elton and the Aids foundation.\u201d Is she friendly with Elton John? \u201cNo, I don\u2019t think they warmed to me.\u201d She laughs, embarrassed. Why not? \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

You keep telling me about people who haven\u2019t warmed to you or dislike you, I say. \u201cI don\u2019t think about it, is the truth,\u201d she says. \u201cThe music business has taught me to think outside everything. I think it\u2019s very predatory. I like to sit on the wall, I like to watch the world go round. I find it really interesting. Maybe that\u2019s because my life\u2019s boring.\u201d<\/p>\n

We head to the photo studio. She walks slowly, with the support of her stick, and seems excited at the prospect of me talking to Jamie about Mercury. I feel I\u2019m about to have the conversation she still can\u2019t face herself.<\/p>\n

I tell Jamie his mother said he knew nothing about Mercury till he was an adult and that he told friends the house was inherited from his great-grandfather. He looks sheepish and tells me it wasn\u2019t quite like that. \u201cSo, when I was younger, there was a tendency for parents to speak about my mother\u2019s association with Freddie, and I didn\u2019t really want that association. I just wanted to be seen for me. So I would tell people I was at school with that it was actually inherited by my grandfather.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 1974 photoshoot for the Queen II album, from left: Roger Taylor, Brian May, John Deacon and Mercury. Photograph: John Angelillo\/UPI\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

But you knew all along? \u201cWell, obviously everyone knows who Freddie Mercury is. It\u2019s true that my mother decided not to talk about Freddie, but there were lots of Freddie\u2019s CDs in the house. One of the first bands I listened to was Queen because the house was filled with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Austin listens intently. \u201cI knew my mother had a relationship with Freddie,\u201d Jamie says. She looks tearful. Did he ever tell her he knew? \u201cWe never discussed it as a family. It was very difficult even when I was an adult for Mum to talk about it. There was a great deal of emotion. The loss was still there. It was obvious to me and my brother how painful it was for my mother to speak about it. When you see that kind of discomfort and pain, it\u2019s not something you want to talk about. So we learned to be respectful of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The showman \u2026 Mercury at Live Aid, Wembley Stadium, July 1985. Photograph: FG\/Bauer-Griffin\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Even when he was a toddler, he says, he was aware of journalists stalking Garden Lodge. \u201cThere were paparazzi outside our house when we were young, people climbing the fence of the house. I remember on the anniversaries of Freddie\u2019s death the garden would be full of flowers brought in by the police. There would be hundreds of people in the street outside. This continued till I was much older, 12, in my teens. The police would set up barricades on the anniversary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Has talking about it all changed his relationship with his mother? \u201cHugely. It was a huge moment for the whole family. And it took years from the first time we talked about it. That was the opening of the door, as it were.\u201d<\/p>\n

He looks at Austin. \u201cNow I have such an incredible appreciation of everything you went through.\u201d He looks back at me. \u201cMum was grieving. She\u2019s giving birth to me two months after Freddie passed, she\u2019s moving into Garden Lodge when I\u2019m six months old and my brother is just over two. She doesn\u2019t have a partner at the time. And she\u2019s left alone with all this and no support structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

He turns back to her. \u201cIt\u2019s strange, because I lived 30 years of it in a very different way from you. But I have such a starkly different appreciation of how difficult everything was for you and why you made the decisions you did to protect us the best you could. Now she\u2019s in her 70s and she feels she had the support structure to close the door on that chapter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jamie tells me he has never met anybody as \u201chumble\u201d as his mother. \u201cTo the point where you don\u2019t believe anyone is interested in anything you have to say or no one wants to speak to you. And you just want to do this for Freddie and to celebrate him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for Aids Awareness, April 1992. Photograph: Mirrorpix\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Despite the wealth and the home, it sounds as if it\u2019s been extremely lonely at times, I say to Austin. She blinks back tears. \u201cYep. Sorry, I\u2019m reliving it and getting emotional.\u201d She says she doesn\u2019t have a clue what the future holds, but she knows it\u2019s finally time to move on. It\u2019s time to declutter her life. And, in a strange way, today\u2019s conversation seems to be part of that process.<\/p>\n

When she considers everything that\u2019s happened, Austin says, she thinks maybe she isn\u2019t so boring after all. \u201cYou need your whole lifetime to realise that. You don\u2019t realise at 19 that your life is going to be unusual. Then at 75 you realise, wow, my life has been unusual. You\u2019re suddenly looking back and thinking, yeah, I do stand alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Freddie Mercury: A Life in Lyrics (HarperCollins, \u00a325) by Mary Austin is out now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There were four silver trunks in Mary Austin\u2019s attic that she packed in the mid-1980s and hadn\u2019t opened…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-610909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}