More than three decades after the death of legendary Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, a bombshell new biography has revealed the existence of a secret love child.
For nearly 50 years, only a handful of people in the rocker’s innermost circle ever knew that he had a daughter. Now, Love, Freddie, by famed biographer Lesley-Ann Jones, lifts the lid on the child, who grew up knowing Freddie was her real father.
Conceived accidentally during a fling with the wife of one of Freddie’s close friends in 1976, a year after Bohemian Rhapsody was released, it was decided that the child would live with her mother and stepfather, with Freddie helping to raise her.
“Freddie visited and stayed with them frequently,” Lesley-Ann told Daily Mail. “He spoke to his daughter every day when he was away on tour or in the recording studio.”
THE SECRET DIARIES
The same year his daughter, who is known in the book as “B”, was born, Freddie began keeping a diary. It chronicled everything from his childhood onwards.
He secretly passed all 17 volumes to the then-15-year-old upon his death from bronchial pneumonia caused by AIDS on November 24, 1991.
Only her mother, stepfather, nanny and Freddie’s former wife, Mary Austin, knew he’d gifted these diaries to his daughter. Armed with the journals, “B” met with Lesley-Ann in Montreux, Switzerland, in 2022.
The biographer admits that, despite her initial doubts, she was soon convinced “B” was telling the truth.
Due out in September, chapter one of Love, Freddie features a handwritten letter from “B”, in which she writes, “Freddie Mercury was and is my father. We had a very close and loving relationship from the moment I was born and throughout the final 15 years of his life.
“He adored me and was devoted to me… He cherished me like a treasured possession.”
Now a mother, living in Europe and working as a medical professional, “B” says it was her decision to reveal herself now.
“[Freddie’s] gift to me was our secret,” she writes. “I owe it to my father to cherish privacy as one of the most precious privileges in life. As he himself said, it was the thing he regretted giving away so readily. The one thing he wished that he could get back.”
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