Freddie Mercury‘s personal life has always been the subject of controversy, both in life and after his passing. The daring leading man of one of the most famous bands of all time – Queen, would have turned 76 on Monday. The singer, songwriter and legendary rock star passed away at 45, in 1991, of an AIDS-related illness, leaving behind an immeasurable legacy in music, showmanship, fashion, and self-expression.
The issue of Mercury’s will has been dissected and scrutinized often since he expressed his last wishes, due to his choice to leave the bulk of his estate to former girlfriend and life-long best friend Mary Austin. The man with whom the Queen vocalist had shared his last few years, Jim Hutton, was only left a small portion of Mercury’s fortune.
Who was left what?
For a star, drawing up a will is less about the past and what was earned in living, and more so about the future of their public image and who they choose as its guardian. For Freddie Mercury, there was only one possible answer: Mary Austin.
In a biography compiled by Greg Brooks, Queen’s official archivist, and Simon Lupton, Queen’s TV and DVD producer and director, there is a quote by Mercury that makes it clear his choice to trust Austin with his life’s legacy was pondered, and sure: “If I go first, I’m going to leave everything to her,” he remarks, adding “Nobody else gets a penny – except the cats. They deserve it.”
In the end it wasn’t exactly like that. Mercury left Austin his £25 million home in the London district of Kensington, where he resided in his last few years and where Austin still lives to this day.
In 2013, Austin told the Daily Mail the ownership of the house was one of the most contested aspects of the musician’s will. “He’d warned me that the house was going to be more of a challenge than I realized,” she said. “I’m grateful he did because I hit jealousy head on – like a Japanese bullet train. Very painful.”
Per the Daily Star, Austin was also left half of Mercury’s £75 million estate, which means access to half of all of Mercury’s future earnings in recording royalties, including music from Queen and his solo work. This is a hefty gift, considering the band’s remarkable longevity and the popularity of their songs to this day.
In his will, Mercury also requested that Austin scatter his ashes in a secret location only she knows. She carried out his wishes with resolve, a task which wasn’t particularly easy since keeping anything related to a celebrity of Mercury’s magnitude a secret is almost impossible. “One morning, I just sneaked out of the house with the urn. I said I was going for a facial,” Austin told the Daily Mail. “It had to be like a normal day so the staff wouldn’t suspect anything – because staff gossip.”
The other half of the “Bohemian Rhapsody” singer’s estate was split between his parents, Bomi and Jer Bulsara, and his younger sister Kashmira and her family.
The men who had reportedly cared for Mercury as his illness progressed in the last years of his life — his partner of six years Jim Hutton, his live-in chef and ex-boyfriend Joe Fanelli, and his live-in personal assistant Peter Freestone — were all left £500,000 by Mercury (accounting for inflation, around £928,000 today). According to the Sunday Express, it’s reported Austin asked them to move out of the house they had been sharing with Mercury soon after he died, with Hutton later claiming the singer had promised the house to him (a claim which Freestone denies).
Speaking of the controversy and the tug-of-war for the house, Austin told the Daily Mail she encouraged Mercury to place the house in a trust when he first told her his intentions. “He said, ‘If things had been different, you would have been my wife and this would have been yours anyway,'” she explained.
Although Mercury and Austin were never married, he did propose to her at one time on Christmas Day with a “beautiful” Egyptian scarab ring inside a succession of bigger-to-smaller boxes, but as his sexual orientation became harder to ignore, he started to go off the idea. When Austin found a wedding dress and asked the singer if it was time to buy it he said no and the wedding never happened. Mercury referred to Austin as his “common-law wife.” “All my lovers asked me why they couldn’t replace Mary, but it’s simply impossible,” Mercury said in a 1985 interview. The two separated in 1976.
Also in 1985, though, a new person came into the leading man’s life who would maybe make him rethink his words. Jim Hutton was Mercury’s long-time boyfriend up until the time of his death. Despite same-sex marriage being illegal in the UK at the time, the two wore matching wedding bands. Hutton told the London Times in 2006 that the singer had expected him to leave when he was diagnosed with AIDs in 1987. “I told him, ‘Don’t be stupid. I’m not going anywhere. I’m here for the long haul,'” Hutton said.
The Queen leading man also left £100,000 to his driver Terry Giddings.