What The Final 12 Months Of Freddie Mercury's Life Were Like

May 2024 ยท 2 minute read

Mercury's diagnosis may have come in 1987, but he admitted he was terminal to his bandmates only in 1989. Right after they released their thirteenth album, The Miracle, Freddie invited them over for a heart-to-heart. According to Rolling Stone, AIDS was never mentioned, but it was clear Freddie wasn't long for this planet, especially when he said, "You probably realize what my problem is." But despite his deteriorating health, all Mercury wanted to do was go about business as usual.

Roger Taylor, Deacon, and May were shaken to their core, but they did what Mercury asked of them. And so in February 1991, Mercury saw Queen's album Innuendo released to the public. Queen did release another album once Mercury was long gone, but Innuendo was the last album that Mercury witnessed. As he put it, he wanted "to keep working till I f***ing drop," and so he did. And while working on the song "The Show Must Go On," Mercury was deathly ill. Brian May was incredibly concerned that the rocker couldn't perform the lyrics, but as GQ Magazine explains, Mercury told his friend, "I'll f***ing do it, darling." And after some vodka, he did it one take. That's just the kind of performer that Mercury was, and according to an interview in The Telegraph, Brian May later said that the atmosphere during these final recordings was one of pure love. 

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