Mary Austin recalls Freddie Mercury’s final moments in new interview

Mary Austin was Freddie Mercury‘s closest friend (and his former fiancée in the 1970s) and an extremely important person in his life. According to his wishes, she took possession of his cremated remains and scattered them at an undisclosed location.

Although Freddie spent and donated much of his wealth to charity during his lifetime, he left Mary 50% of his estate, while the other half was divided between his parents and sister. In a new interview with The Guardian, she talked about the late singer and recalled his final moments.

Mary Austin recalls Freddie Mercury’s final moments in new interview

“He wanted to live his life. It’s sad; you want to live life and then you realize maybe you’ve stretched the book a little bit too far and the spine is going to crack. 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.”

“The British media had a huge impact, and sculpted the way he lived his life. I remember a bike was coming through to collect (a) film. The courier asked if there was any news and someone shouted, ‘No, he’s not dead yet.’ They were waiting, vulture-like. They’d wait for him when he had doctors’ appointments and had to leave the house. Freddie needed decoys. It got chaotic.”

She continued:

“(Freddie) knew he had AIDS, and he felt he should never touch Richard (my son), go near him, because there was so little known about the virus at the time. (I was not worried about that) I was there next to his bed; I was holding his hand, I was doing whatever I needed to do.”

“I was holding his hand. He was on morphine and in and out of consciousness, and he falls back to sleep. I stand there for quite a while, and he finally comes round again and he just said, ‘My old faithful.’ So I felt a bit like a dog. I wasn’t flattered. (His way to express love to people was when) he bought things”.

During the same conversation she said that Queen‘s “Love of My Life”, song many fans said was written because of her, actually wasn’t.  “He never said it was about me. He wrote ‘Lily of the Valley’ about me. I think I can say, in retrospect, so far, yes, he is the love of my life.” “Lily of the Valley” was part of Queen’s third studio album released in 1974.