Queen Bandmate Says Freddie Mercury Lost Most Of His Foot Before He Died
Before passing away due to complications from AIDS, Queen frontman Freddie Mercury had lost almost his entire foot.
Queen guitarist Brian May told the Sunday Times magazine that Freddie, who died at 45 in 1991, didn’t share the magnitude of how much he was suffering, even to his bandmates.
“Once, he showed [the foot] 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 realize that you have to put up with so much terrible pain.’”
Unfortunately, Freddie didn’t make it long enough to benefit from the incredible anti-HIV drugs we have today.
Now, antiretroviral therapy suppresses the virus to such low levels that it makes an HIV-positive person undetectable, which means it’s impossible for them to transmit the virus to negative partners.
“He missed by just a few months,” Brian said regretfully. “If it had been a bit later, he would still have been with us, I’m sure… Of course, we all knew [he had AIDS], but we didn’t want to [acknowledge it]. 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.”