In the mid-1980s, Mary Austin packed four silver trunks and stored them in her attic. She never opened them again—it was too painful. Nearly 40 years later, in 2022, she finally opened one. Inside were stacks of handwritten lyrics by Freddie Mercury, including songs like “Don’t Stop Me Now,” “Killer Queen,” “We Are the Champions,” and, of course, “Bohemian Rhapsody.” She closed the trunk right away. It was still too painful.
“To say I was overwhelmed is an understatement,” she says. “I couldn’t look at the lyrics. I felt the same way I did when I first packed them—they were his personal things, and I felt like I was being given a chance to pry into them, and I just couldn’t do that.” Eventually, she asked her two sons to go through the treasures for her.
The original handwritten lyrics belonged to her. So did Mercury’s house, where she has lived for over 30 years. And so did half of his estate, which has grown over the decades from an estimated £20–30 million to around £150 million. In the years since Mercury’s death, Austin has become extremely wealthy, though she denies reports that her share of the estate rose to 75% after his parents passed away.
Many Queen fans have accused her of hoarding his belongings, making money off the band’s legendary frontman without doing anything, and keeping fans and his family from basic facts, like where his ashes were scattered. Meanwhile, Mercury seemed to see her as the one person in the world he could fully trust, and Austin has quietly devoted her life to him.
The bond between Austin and Mercury is fascinating. Over the years, it has intrigued his fans, especially because she has rarely spoken about it publicly.
We meet at the Guardian offices in London. Austin has a striking face (when she smiles, she reminds me a bit of Debbie Harry), walks with a cane, and is dressed elegantly but modestly. Everything about her is understated. She’s here with her younger son, Jamie, who is in his mid-30s and was born a couple of months after Mercury died in 1991 at age 45. Oddly, he looks a little like the singer, though Mercury is not his father.
She is about to release a book called Freddie Mercury: A Life in Lyrics, which combines the lyrics in their original messy form, photographs, and her thoughts on how the lyrics relate to Mercury, and how Mercury related to her. As you’d expect from someone who has fiercely protected his privacy since his death, it’s hardly a tell-all. Neither is today’s interview. But she is surprisingly open about their life together.
She and Mercury—born Farrokh Bulsara 80 years ago this week—were an unlikely pair. He was loud, flashy, confident, and very camp. She was quiet, reserved, shy, and traditional. He was a rock star in one of the world’s biggest bands; she was a shop assistant who became a manager at Biba. He loved spending money, whether on himself or for good causes. She didn’t care about material things. He was gay; she was strictly straight.
They met in 1970, when Mercury was running a clothes and textile stall in Kensington Market in London after finishing his degree in graphic art and design. 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 brainstorming 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 being transported back to that day. “He was full of bravado. I picked up a magazine and started flipping 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 practical, she says. He wanted to live in London but couldn’t afford a place on his own. So they moved in together and split the rent.
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The early days … Austin and Mercury in 1971. Photograph: Courtesy of Mary Austin
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 financially. Her mother was a cleaner, and her father worked in a factory. Her mother died when Austin was 15, and she found herself raising 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 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 about his identity. He was born in Africa to Parsi Indian parents and spoke with an English accent. At the time, brown pop stars were rare.
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’d ask, ‘Where are you from?’ When he said Bombay, they arrested him because they thought he was joking.”
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Austin and Mercury with Queen’s 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
Did he speak Indian languages? “Never in front of me. His parents would speak Gujarati, but he answered in English.”
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 dating Austin and partly because it was the glam rock era, when any self-respecting male pop star wore makeup, high heels, and dresses.
Austin says she always had her suspicions, though. She makes her younger 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 with her. “And by the time he looked back for me, I’d gone. I just thought, hmm, 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 apologized later. In all those 20 years I knew him, it was probably the only time he apologized.”
What did he have to apologize for? “I don’t know. I said, I think this is maybe not for me …” Even now, she’s not sure why she reacted that way. “Looking back, I can say he might have been testing the waters.” You thought he was checking to see if you were bisexual too? She nods. “But I didn’t want a menage à trois. I’m heterosexual. I don’t stretch that far, you know.”
View image inMercury and Austin in 1975. Photograph: Courtesy of Mary Austin
But she loved being with him. Before Mercury, Austin had only had two short relationships. “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 hearing 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 soon got 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, became 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 genuine confidence, and he was becoming focused. Austin found she was meeting 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 that the owners were getting rid of.
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Mercury’s piano and stage outfits were among his personal items displayed at Sotheby’s auction house in London in September 2023. Photograph: Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Sotheby’s
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 then on …”
But this is what made their relationship so special, says Austin. She had been devastated by the uncertainty, and now she could accept 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.”
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Austin in 1984 … ‘I became Freddie’s girl Friday. Miss Reliable.’ Photograph: Rogers/Getty Images
Austin became Mercury’s PA, and Mercury seemed to think her duties included refereeing his stormy 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 feelMore like an employee than a friend? “No, but if he had treated me like an employee, I would have just put up with it, because I’d know it was because he was in a bad mood or annoyed with someone, or maybe I’d done something without realizing. We were honest with each other. He once told me I was inefficient, and I completely agreed.” What was 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 nonsensical story and random references to Galileo, Figaro, and Scaramouche. Queen’s management told them it was a suicide single. Bohemian Rhapsody stayed at No. 1 for nine weeks and became the biggest-selling single of the 1970s. The band was as unpredictable as they were successful, moving 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 hip-hop (Another One Bites the Dust).
View image in fullscreen: Austin with Mercury at his 38th birthday party, 5 September 1984. Photograph: Alan Davidson/Shutterstock
Mercury had an astonishing four-octave vocal range, from baritone 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 best-selling band of all time, behind only the Beatles. In 1985, when their popularity seemed to be fading, they outperformed every other act at Live Aid. And, if anything, their popularity has grown since Mercury’s death. The 2018 film Bohemian Rhapsody earned nearly $1 billion at the box office, the highest-grossing music biopic in history at the time.
Did fame change Mercury? “It changed the shape of him,” says Austin, “but not his core. You can’t get on the bus anymore, for example. The shape changes externally, but inside you stay the same. You have to. You don’t survive this business if you don’t, because your ego will just take over and destroy you.”
Was he ever in danger of his ego taking over? “I saw glimpses of it.” When? She says it started when the band was being managed by John Reid. “They were traveling, they were successful, and there were certain interesting conversations you’d 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.”
View image in fullscreen: Mercury and Austin in 1985. Photograph: Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy
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 wantYou live your life, and then you realize maybe you’ve pushed the book a little too far, and the spine is about to crack. Does that make sense as an analogy?” But she believes he was happiest during the wild, extravagant years. “I think he felt most free in New York. No one was chasing him there. In America, he could move from state to state. He could disappear while they were on tour. But he could do that in France too, and he did it in Munich. Wherever people were more accepting of his sexuality, he was happy.”
Does she think he had any regrets? “He always said he regretted nothing. But you never know.” She pauses. “There was a time when he said he wished he could talk about being addicted to cocaine. He was telling me about it, so I don’t know who he wished he could be talking to. I think he was just thinking out loud. This was long before New York and the excesses.”
Did the cocaine change him? “No, I was amazed. I never did it. But I used to watch people and wonder, how do you do it? How do you drink as much as you do?” Did he drink a lot? “Yeah.” And did she ever take drugs? “No. Well, I did take a puff of a joint once.”
Mercury was incredibly creative in his final years. There was his 1988 operatic collaboration with Montserrat Caballé, Barcelona; Innuendo, the last Queen album released during 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 loved the house and its Japanese-style gardens. Austin lived less than a mile away, and she had made sure Garden Lodge was exactly how he wanted it.
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’s godfather. I ask if he doted on him. “Well, he knew he had Aids, and he felt he should never touch Richard or go near him, because so little was known about the virus at the time.” She didn’t share that worry, she says. When Mercury was dying, Austin was pregnant with her second son, Jamie. “I was there next to his bed, holding his hand, doing whatever I needed to do.”
There have been many books written about Mercury. One published last year suggested he had a secret daughter who later died. Austin isn’t convinced. “He never told me he had a daughter, and I can’t imagine him ever keeping that secret.” She giggles. “Sorry!”
The press was relentless towards the end. “The British media had a huge impact and shaped the way he lived his life,” Austin says. “There were photographers outside Garden Lodge, and I remember a bike came by to collect their film. The courier asked if there was any news, and someone shouted, ‘No, he’s not dead yet.'” How long before he died was that? “Maybe two weeks. They were waiting, like vultures. They’d wait for him when he had doctor’s appointments and had to leave the house. Freddie needed decoys. It got chaotic.”
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 about accepting and supporting people with Aids.
As for Austin, she split up with the father of her boys before Jamie was born. She later married, but that didn’t last either. Does she think her love for Mercury affected her relationships with other men? “I think I have bad taste,” she says. Has she ever chosen well? “After Freddie, no.”
Can she remember the last words he said to her? Silence. Eventually she answers. “I was holding his hand. He was on morphine, drifting in and out…”He drifts out of consciousness and falls back asleep. I stood there for a long time until he finally came around again, and he just said, ‘My old faithful.’ So I felt a bit like a dog. I wasn’t flattered.” She laughs. It’s one of the saddest laughs I’ve ever heard.
Had he ever told her he loved her? “No. No, he wasn’t the type to say that… He bought things.” Did she believe him when he said he’d written the song Love of My Life for her? No, she says, that’s a myth. “He never said it was about me. He wrote Lily of the Valley about me.” Lily of the Valley is a much more cryptic song about his changing sexuality and his relationship with Austin. I ask if he was the love of her life. “I think I can say, looking back, so far, yes, he is the love of my life.”
Mercury might not have told Austin he loved her, but in a 1985 interview, he said: “The only friend I’ve got is Mary, and I don’t want anybody else. We believe in each other, that’s enough for me.”
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Mary Austin … ‘Freddie could see the sadness in me that he felt within himself, and vice versa.’ Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian
He called Austin his common-law wife and, years before he died, told her she would inherit the house and 50% of his fortune and future royalties. She told him straight out she didn’t want Garden Lodge. “I said, I don’t want the house, I’ve 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.” In the end, she says, she felt it was her duty to accept the inheritance.
Does she think he did it out of love or as an apology? She winces. “I don’t know. There’s more on that list than you realize, I’m afraid.” Such as? “Oh, lots.” Guilt? “Could be, but I think not. If you put your thinking cap on, you’ll get there.”
I think Austin might 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’t want the house turned into a museum. “Back in the day, museums were very dusty and stuffy and he didn’t see himself as dusty and stuffy.” And he didn’t want anyone to know where his ashes had been scattered. Austin will take that secret to her grave.
It’s been a source of much friction, not least between her and Mercury’s surviving family. “I think if I was Freddie’s parents, Freddie’s sister, and I wasn’t allowed to know where his ashes have been scattered, I would be upset and offended, but that’s the job he asked me to do. And I did it. I kept saying to them, ‘I’m really, really sorry – I can’t tell you.'” Did they accept that? “His mother did, yes.”
Austin says she struggled so much after Mercury’s death. “It took me a long time to get over the moment of death – that transition between, you’re going to die, to the day he does die, to the day after, to the week after, to the month after. That’s for me, emotionally, how it went. But because I was pregnant, I realized, I can’t do this to my child. I’ve got to do whatever I need to do, and I used that to defer any pain.”
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Mercury with Austin at the Ivor Novello awards in 1987, where Queen won the ‘outstanding contribution to British music’ category. Photograph: Mirrorpix/Getty Images
It wasn’t simply his death that traumatized her – the will led to a lot of antagonism. Hutton was left £500,000 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 sheI didn’t have any choice. “It had nothing to do with me. It was all down to the executors of the will.” Even though she didn’t want to move into Garden Lodge, it brought her a lot of comfort. “I could still be with him.”
The years since then have been pretty lonely, though, she says. While Mercury had many groups of friends, she says she never has. “I’m a loner. I keep myself company.” Has she enjoyed her own company? “Yes, but now that I’m getting much older, I’m getting bored with it. I get tired of focusing on how my back hurts and needing to find another physio, because that’s not really living life anymore.”
In the end, Austin had her sons and Sotheby’s empty the silver trunks, figure out how much Mercury’s belongings were worth, and get ready for the auction. Austin thought that this way, his true fans would end up with his treasures. But that’s not how it turned out. A lot of it went to the super-rich, who just see it as an investment. The auction raised £40 million, and again fans suggested Austin was only looking out for herself. Does that bother her? “No, they have a right to their opinion. But I’m 75, and I’m going to die. 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.”
She says she doesn’t regret selling his collection, but others aren’t so positive. It was reported that Mercury’s sister, Kashmira, anonymously spent £3 million buying back family keepsakes. Austin says she doesn’t know if that’s true, but the thought makes her sad. “We did reach out to her before the sale to see if she wanted anything.” She says their relationship is fragile, and she hopes it’s getting better.
As for the house – which, until the Sotheby’s auction, had mostly stayed the same since Mercury lived there – she now realizes he understood how important it would be to her. “I lived in the house he wanted me to live in and explored it for 20 years. The house was full of him; the memories. He knew how much I loved him, and how much I would need that house.” But now, she says, it’s time to move on. Garden Lodge is on sale for £30 million. She hopes it goes to a family with children who will enjoy it as much as she and her boys have.
Has the inheritance been a blessing or a curse? “Mostly, it’s been really difficult.” What’s the most extravagant thing she’s bought herself? Nothing really, she says. “I bought my husband two Ferraris,” she says, with disdain. He asked for a second one? “Yeah. And I was like, you can have it, but you have to go.”
At first, after the trunks were opened, her sons and Sotheby’s went through them. But gradually she got over her reluctance, and once she could look, she couldn’t stop. Not only were the lyrics important pop history documents, she realized she could explain the context, because she was there when most of them 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.
How did her boys feel about going through Mercury’s things? Astonished, she says. This is where the story gets really strange. “The boys had no idea until they were in their late 20s.” They had no idea how much he had left or what it was worth? No, she says, they had no idea about any of it. “They 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 realized.” Jamie is in another room, looking after her clothes for the photoshoot, while we talk.
So how did he think they had gotten the…The money to buy the house? “Jamie thought we’d inherited the house from his great-grandfather.” Because you told him that? “No, he made it up. When he was young, he brought a friend to the house. In my head, I can see them near the piano, mid-conversation, with photos on the piano, and Jamie is telling his friend, ‘Yes, the house used to belong to my great-grandfather.’ And I thought, where did you get that from?”
Were there no pictures of Freddie in the house? “There were, on the piano, but Jamie never asked. Nobody asked. They were just there.” Did the boys know anything about the inheritance? “No.” At what point did she tell them that she had inherited Mercury’s house and money, and that he was the love of her life? How did that conversation go? “It never did. I never talk to them about money. Money goes into the bank account if you need to pay for anything.” Have the boys got Ferraris? “No, my eldest has a third-hand Mini that used to be mine, then Jamie’s, because he’s really sentimental, and Jamie and I share a Tesla.”
Did she not think she was keeping something important from them? “No, because they were young boys growing into teenagers and young men. I’ve read so many psychology books about young boys, 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.” It seems she is thinking back to her childhood and Mercury’s.
When did Jamie realise it was Mercury’s house? “He’s 34 now. He had no idea until pre-Sotheby’s auction discussions four years ago, when I realised I had to tell him.” Was he gobsmacked? “You ask him.” Did he know about Queen? “I don’t know. Ask him.” Did he listen to their music? “I haven’t even asked him that question. I just didn’t want him to grow up being anybody else other than himself. I’d lived around Freddie, and how do you ever describe anyone like Freddie? It takes a lifetime. And it took my lifetime, even though he’s been dead for so much of it.”
It doesn’t seem healthy to me to live guarding such a massive secret from your children. Does she think it screwed her up? “No, because talking about him used to make me cry. Why would I do that to make myself upset?”
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Cloak and swagger … the free exhibition of Mercury’s personal collection at Sotheby’s, London, September 2023. Photograph: Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Sotheby’s
I ask who will inherit the money when she dies, expecting her to reel off a list of charities. But she doesn’t. “It’s going to go to my children, and it will find its way as it normally does – death duties, and the tax man.” Will much of it go to charity? “A good tranche goes to Elton and the Aids foundation.” Is she friendly with Elton John? “No, I don’t think they warmed to me.” She laughs, embarrassed. Why not? “I don’t know.”
You keep telling me about people who haven’t warmed to you or dislike you, I say. “I don’t think about it, is the truth,” she says. “The music business has taught me to think outside everything. I think it’s very predatory. I like to sit on the wall, I like to watch the world go round. I find it really interesting. Maybe that’s because my life’s boring.”
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’m about to have the conversation she still can’t face herself.
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’t quite like that. “So, when I was younger, there was a tendency for parents to speak about my mother’sI didn’t want that connection. I just wanted to be recognized for who I was. So I’d tell people from school that the house had actually been inherited by my grandfather.
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A 1974 photoshoot for the Queen II album, from left: Roger Taylor, Brian May, John Deacon and Mercury. Photograph: John Angelillo/UPI/Shutterstock
But you knew all along? “Well, obviously everyone knows who Freddie Mercury is. It’s true that my mother chose not to talk about Freddie, but there were lots of Freddie’s CDs in the house. One of the first bands I listened to was Queen because the house was full of them.” Austin listens closely. “I knew my mother had a relationship with Freddie,” Jamie says. She looks close to tears. Did he ever tell her he knew? “We never talked about it as a family. Even when I was an adult, it was very hard for Mum to discuss it. There was so much emotion. The loss was still there. It was clear to me and my brother how painful it was for her to talk about it. When you see that kind of discomfort and pain, you don’t want to bring it up. So we learned to respect that.”
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The showman … Mercury in 1986. Photograph: FG/Bauer-Griffin/Getty Images
Even as a toddler, he says, he was aware of journalists hanging around Garden Lodge. “There were paparazzi outside our house when we were young, people climbing the fence. I remember on the anniversaries of Freddie’s death, the garden would be full of flowers that the police had brought in. There would be hundreds of people in the street outside. This went on until I was much older, around 12 or into my teens. The police would set up barricades on the anniversary.”
Has talking about all this changed his relationship with his mother? “Hugely. It was a big moment for the whole family. And it took years from the first time we talked about it. That was the opening of the door, so to speak.” He looks at Austin. “Now I have such an incredible appreciation for everything you went through.” He turns back to me. “Mum was grieving. She gave birth to me two months after Freddie passed, she moved into Garden Lodge when I was six months old and my brother was just over two. She didn’t have a partner at the time. And she was left alone with all of that and no support system.”
He turns back to her. “It’s strange, because I lived 30 years of it in a very different way than you did. But I now have a much clearer understanding of how hard everything was for you and why you made the choices you did to protect us as best you could. Now she’s in her 70s and she feels she has the support to close the door on that chapter.”
Jamie tells me he has never met anyone as “humble” as his mother. “To the point where you don’t believe anyone is interested in what you have to say or that anyone wants to talk to you. And you just want to do this for Freddie and to celebrate him.”
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The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for Aids Awareness, April 1992. Photograph: Mirrorpix/Getty Images
Despite the wealth and the home, it sounds like it’s been very lonely at times, I say to Austin. She blinks back tears. “Yeah. Sorry, I’m reliving it and getting emotional.” She says she has no idea what the future holds, but she knows it’s finally time to move on. It’s time to clear out her life. And, in a strange way, today’s conversation seems to be part of that process.
When she thinks about everything that’s happened, Austin says, she thinks maybe she isn’t so boring after all. “You need your whole lifetime to realize that. You don’t realize at 19 that your life is going to be unusual. Then at 75 you realize, wow, my life has been unusual. You’re suddenly looking back and thinking, yeah, I do stand alone.”
Freddie Mercury: A Life in Lyrics by MarAustin (HarperCollins Publishers, £30) is out now. To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs based on the topic of Mary Austin and Freddie Mercurys relationship covering both general curiosity and deeper insights
General Background Questions
1 Who is Mary Austin
Mary Austin was Freddie Mercurys closest friend confidante and former fiancée He considered her his commonlaw wife and left her the majority of his estate including his London home Garden Lodge
2 How did Mary Austin and Freddie Mercury meet
They met in 1969 at a West Kensington clothing stall called Biba where Mary worked as a shop assistant Freddie then known as Farrokh Bulsara bought a pair of boots from her and asked her out
3 Were Freddie Mercury and Mary Austin ever married
No they were never legally married Freddie proposed to her in the early 1970s and they were engaged but the engagement ended when Freddie told her about his bisexuality
4 Why is she called the love of his life
Freddie himself said it In interviews he stated that all his lovers asked why they couldnt replace Mary and he replied Because you are not Mary She was his emotional anchor and the only person he truly trusted
5 Did Mary Austin know Freddie was gay
Freddie told her he was bisexual in 1976 but Mary has since said she always suspected he was different She has stated that being bisexual was Freddies way of softening the blow for her
The Relationship Its Dynamics
6 Why did they break up if they loved each other
When Freddie told Mary about his sexuality she realized she couldnt have the traditional marriage she wanted They broke off the engagement but remained incredibly close with Freddie moving into a flat nearby
7 What was their relationship like after the breakup
They became even more like family Mary became his personal assistant managed his properties and was the one person he called for emotional support She was a constant presence in his life until his death
8 Did Mary Austin approve of Freddies later partners like Jim Hutton
Mary has been described as protective of Freddie She reportedly had a complex relationship with his later partners She respected Jim Hutton for making Freddie happy in his final years but she remained the primary figure in his life
