June 28, 2022 • 33 mins
As the era-defining singer, songwriter and front man of rock band Queen, Freddie Mercury’s life story is bursting with great romances. And none were greater than his last - those picturesque and peaceful final years, spent with Irishman Jim Hutton at the idyllic Garden Lodge.
But Freddie’s romantic life was complex and nuanced, and dominated by two great and enduring loves.
The man who nursed him on his death bed and the woman who inherited his fortune.
For the seven years leading up to his death, hunky Irish hairdresser Jim Hutton was by his side. Jim was Freddie's life partner and the man who cared for him in his final days.
But there was also Mary Austin, Freddie’s best friend, one-time fiancée and eventually the beneficiary of much of his estate, and the only person who knows where the star’s remains were laid to rest.
Why did Mary kick Jim out of Freddie’s house? And how did Jim turn down Freddie Mercury, the most beloved rockstar on the planet, when they first met in a nightclub in the 80s?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hooked, Hitched and Hung Up acknowledges the traditional custodians of
country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community.
We pay our respect to their elders past and present
and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander peoples today. This episode was recorded on Walla Medical Land.
(00:20):
Just a heads up, guys, this episode's got a bit
of spicy language in it, so it might not be
the episode if you've got little ones around.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Welcome to Hooked, Hitched, and Hung Up, the show where
we take you inside the spiciest celebrity relationship stories of
our time.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I'm Laura Burn and I'm Britney Hockley.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Now this is one of the greatest rock stars of
all time, a story that everybody knows a bit about,
but maybe doesn't know everything about. We're talking about Queen's frontman, Freddie.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Mercury, who doesn't love Freddie Mercury.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Now, a lot of us might be familiar with the
story of Mary, his first big relationship, and that is
a real important parts. So we're kind of doing this
episode in two parts because we're talking about Mary, because
the relationship never really ends but we're also talking about
another very big relationship from Freddy's life with the person
that he was with when his life came to.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
An end, and that is Jim Hutton.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
All right, now, this episode we are unpacking Freddy Mercury's
love life.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
It's a tumultuous love life, that's the way that I
would use.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, And there's some really like heartbreaking moments throughout his
life as well. And I think the thing that's interesting
about this episode is that on the other episodes we
have picked truly one relationship, We've gone on a deep
dive on one person. But because Freddie Mercury's life has
been so intertwined with a number of people, and more
so Mary, who's the woman who he started his relationships with.
(01:52):
She was his very first fiance and he calls her
the love of his life. She comes up throughout this
whole story. So even though this is suppose to be
an episode about Freddie Mercury and Jim Hutton, it truly
is a story of just Freddie Mercury's love life in
total as a whole. As a whole, but also I
think for us to be able to start his story
and to really give you an idea of who he
(02:12):
is as a person.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
We've got to start at the beginning. That's generally where
we start our stories, isn't it, Laura.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
But we're going all the way back to the beginning,
to where he was born, so like the very further
womb once upon a time when Freddie Mercury was an embryo.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
No, we're gonna go back all the way. Could you
imagine him dancing around as an emberor would have been
wild in there? Well? Okay.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Freddie Mercury was born in nineteen forty six in Stonetown,
which is a part of Zanzibar now we know of
it as Tanzania.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
East Africa. His childhood was.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
So colorful and so rich in different cultures. When he
was born, he wasn't called Freddie Mercury, so his original
birth name.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Was Faroke Bulsara.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Freddy's parents are passy people of western India and they
moved to Zanzibar for Freddy's father's work before he was even.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Born as a child, was he always like a musical prodigy?
Was he doing music as a kid or did he
come into that later in life?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
So he was taking piano lessons by the age of
seven and was already very musically inclined as a little kid.
When he was eight years old, Freddy was shipped off
and out of his family home to a boarding school
and it was like a British style boys boarding school
in India. He joined a band when he was in
this British boys boarding school. Say that ten times fast.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Banned in the British boys boarding school, and it was
called the Hectics, where he played rock and roll covers.
I did read that when he was at boarding school,
his friends used to to say that he had this
uncanny ability to listen to the radio and replay immediately
what he heard on the piano, like some people were
(03:45):
just naturally inclined that way. So he was just born
as like a child prodigy, I guess, okay.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Well, also at this time when he was in the
y the Hectics band, so this is when he started
to go by.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
The name Freddie, but not by Freddie Mercury, just Freddy.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
So in nineteen sixty four, the next year, just after
Freddy had moved back to live with his parents in Zanzibar,
the whole family moved to England. They've immigrated to the
UK as him being a sixteen year old boy, and
he's always been in this very creative field. He got
a diploma in graphic design. He also went on to
(04:18):
do a couple of different little bands. Like music was
always there and it was always his passion, but it
wasn't what he went into with the intention of that
being his long term career.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
So he's doing all these little bands, but is this
what's bringing him money? Like were these bands successful or
was he? I mean at the corner store, Like, how
is Freddie surviving at this time?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
He's not out there cracking big money from doing music,
but he was working in a secondhand Edwardian clothing store.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
It's like it's like the old Royal era, isn't it.
I'm looking at my producers like they're not in, not
in Yeah, yeah, okay, we're right, Were's okay.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
The reason why this store, though, is very important is
because that's where he met Roger Taylor. So Roger Taylor
would go on to become Queen's drummer. So in nineteen seventy,
Freddy joined the band Smile. He joined Roger Taylor and
Brian May's band as the lead singer.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
I always get down his rabbit hole of like, how
crazy it is that the universe put these two people
together out of everyone in the world. Freddie's working at
a secondhand clothing store, Edwardian Clothing Store, where he happens
to meet someone called Roger Taylor. Combined they become the
greatest band of all time. What if he didn't take
that job, what would have happened? Would Queen have existed?
(05:29):
Who knows? You know what I always think.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
I always feel sorry for the person who was the
previous singer, who was like, fuck this band, I'm.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Going to go do something else, so I'm going to frown.
Oh god.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
That was so in nineteen seventy one, that is when
they're bassist John Deacon joined Smile as well, and it
was shortly after that that Freddie put it out there
that he thought that the name Smile maybe it didn't
really represent what the band or the direction that the
band was going in, and he floated the idea of
the name Queen. Around the same time, Freddy also legally
(06:02):
changed his name, so he changed his surname to Mercury,
which was taken from his own song that he'd written,
which was called My Fairy King. And that is how
Freddie Mercury was born.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
I remember it. This wasn't a straight to the top
path for Queen. It wasn't like they were born. They
started a band and then they were number one because
they came to Australia in nineteen seventy four and they
played at the Sunbury Pop Festival. They were actually like
booed off the stage by the audience. People weren't frothing them.
Freddie turned around to the crowd and he said, when
we come back to Australia, Queen will be the biggest
(06:36):
band in the world. And I am sorry, but we
all need a little bit of Freddy's confidence to be
booed off the stage and be like I'm going to
come back at number one in the world. I think
we can all learn something from that too. You were
about believing in yourself. I mean, Australia's always a little
bit behind the times, aren't we. Well he really did
stick to his word, because they did become the biggest
band of all time, and they started touring, playing till
hundreds of thousands of people at a time, and they
(06:57):
started partying so hard like they were to find rock stars.
Elton John actually even said that Queen could out party,
even him at the time. And that's saying something because
Elton John was pretty wild. I mean, we've all seen
Elton John's movie as well. I mean that was that
said something.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
But there is a quote from NME Music magazine which
says Queen were well known in the industry for the
outrageous shindigs. Most notably was the jazz launch party at
the New Orleans Fairmount Hotel in nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Which featured wholesome delights.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
These are the wholesome delights, Brittany, including nude waiters and waitresses,
a fellow biting heads off live chickens.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
What naked models wrestling in a liver pit? What is
a liver pit? I'm assuming a pit of liver.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
And people sworning around with trays of cocaine strapped to them.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
I'm all for a party, but this is not my
kind of party. This is like animal cruelty. Maybe I
could get around like like fine with people strapped with cocaine. No,
maybe the nude waiters and waitresses mabably not at their
dialok like chantining tainum. I don't know. I have questions,
but no, the rest of that is wild.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
This isn't this just crazy that this sort of like
behavior is like synonymous with mega starret and partying.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
There are no rules for them.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Now we need to backtrack a little bit in order
to tell you the story about Mary. She plays such
a huge part in Freddie's life. Throughout his whole life,
Freddie was very private as well. Whilst he was obviously
a very public figure and very loved around the world,
he cherished a lot of his private life. So I
think she actually meant a lot more to him than
we probably saw. They just had something that was completely
(08:30):
different but really really profound to them that maybe a
lot of people didn't understand in the long term. But
let's get back to how they actually met and what
happened at the start. So Mary Austin and Freddie met
when she was nineteen and he was twenty four, so
their relationship progressed really really quickly. They were soon living
together in a flat near Kensington Market, which is where
Freddie and Roger worked at the Edwardian costume store. And
(08:51):
then four years later, in nineteen seventy three, Freddie proposed
in what is I mean? It's a very unique lovely
way of proposing, and he kind of had like a
bush good dole of presence.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
For her unique and lovely way proposing is subjective. Oh okay,
that's really setting a special mood.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Well, it's a special moment, and I have a special
gift for you.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Wait here, Freddy, what is that? Well it's quite clearly
a box, Darling. What's ridiculous? Why is it so big?
See what's inside? Oh it's just another box. Oh that's right. Okay,
see what's inside that box? Another box? You're taking the piers,
(09:39):
Keep going, Darling, Freddy, it's beautiful inside.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
The final small little box was an engagement ring made
out of jade, which I love. That is something different,
not a diamond.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
I love that they got together and Mary fell in
love with him before he famous. He was just in
a little apartment. He didn't have the money yet, he
didn't have the fame. She just loved him for who
he was, and he grew into that and she grew
with him. And I think that's why their love lasted
so many years, because they knew each other and they
had a foundation. And I guess, Freddie, it would be
so hard if you had that level of fame to
(10:18):
trust people. And I think you would question everyone that
came into your life. Everyone has an ulterior motive. Everyone
wants something for you. He was holding onto something and
someone that he could trust wholeheartedly because she was there
from the beginning. So I think that's a really beautiful thing.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
At the time, she thought he was heterosexual, like she
thought that they were in a long term They're going
to be in a heterosexual relationship. But Mary started to
realize either he wasn't aware of his own sexuality yet,
he wasn't ready to admit what his sexuality was, but
there was a like it didn't line up, and she
was suspicious of it. And it was Mary who was
the one who who brought it up with Freddie and
(10:55):
was like, I think you are bisexual. So from all reports,
it was Mary who pushed Freddy to have those conversations
and who pushed Freddy to be more transparent around his sexuality.
There is actually an interview which came from Enemy magazine,
and the interviewer asked Freddy at the time, so how
about being bent. This was in nineteen seventy four, so
it was not long after Mary and Freddy had actually
(11:17):
gotten engaged. So even though he was living this heterosexual
life with a fiance, there was still some speculation and
rumor around what his sexuality was.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Imagine an interviewer asking anyone, oh, you would verien age,
how about being bent? As a question, you'd never It's
so invasive and outrageous that somebody could think that they're
entitled to that information from someone different world, different world
and different time. And Freddie's response to that was, you.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Were a crafty cow. Let's put it this way. There's
times when I was young and green. It's a thing
schoolboys go through. I've had my share of schoolboy pranks.
I'm not going to elaborate any further. There have been
some other reports that have come out where Freddy has
commented that that is where his first sexual experiences happened.
But imagine being in Mary's position, where you've just gotten
(12:06):
engaged and there's these speculations around your partner's sexuality and
whether they're being transparent with you or not.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I also love his answers. They're always so ambiguous, Like
he's like, he gives an answer, but you're like, I
don't you finished the conversation. You're like, don't actually know
what he said. You're like, you didn't answer anything. He
could have been. A politician or a musician is what
he could have been.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
It's believed that Freddy started secretly dating men towards the
end of his relationship with Mary, so there was some
overlap there. And obviously if you're being cheated on, that's
when Mary started to feel suspicious that something was going on.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Well, yes, if you're partnersheating on you with men, you
would be suspicious as well.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
You'd be right, you'd be suspicious anyway. Like if it
doesn't matter who, what the sex of the partner is,
if there's cheating going on, you usually can sense that
something has shifted. I just want to read this one quote,
which was from two thousand and interview with Okay magazine,
and Mary said, I told him something is going on,
and I just feel like there is a noose around
my neck. I think it's time for me to go.
But he insisted nothing wrong. Then his life rocketed, the
(13:02):
band got successful. Things were never going to be the
same after that, and that's when our relationship cooled. I
felt that he was avoiding any confrontation with me. When
I came home from work, he just wouldn't be there.
He would come in late we weren't as close as
what we had been in the past. That was the
time when everything coincided, his career was going gangbusters and
their relationship was starting to fizzle.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
I mean, it must be so hard to be living
I guess a lie like living a relationship for Freddie,
he obviously loved Mary very very much, but not in
the way that he wanted from a partner. It must
be really, really hard to feel like you can't live
your true life and be your authentic self. And he
would have felt like he was trapped in a box,
like how do you break away from that? And it's
(13:45):
not even a normal situation. You have to break away
from that and find out who you are and what
you want in front of the entire world. I cannot
imagine the pressure that he would have felt.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Mary went to Freddy and said, I'll never forget that moment.
I remember saying to him, no, fred I don't think
that you're bisexual.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I think that you were gay.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
That quote is from an interview that Mary actually did
with The Daily Mail. Mary also remembers that it was
an affirming moment for Freddy as well, because Freddie went
on to say it felt good about being able to
finally have revealed his bisexuality to someone. So it was
almost for him like this huge weight had been lifted
and he didn't have to live a lie to the
person who he loved the most in the world. And eventually,
which is the craziest part of this whole story, is
(14:24):
that Mary moved out. So Mary moved out of their
shared apartment, but she moved out to a place that
was only just around the corner because he wanted her
to stay close to him. So Mary told Okay Magazine,
Eventually I found a place nearby which he wanted me
to have. It was perfect for a single person such
as myself. His music publishing company bought it for me
(14:44):
for thirty thousand pounds.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
So he bought her a house and they lived down
the road. And I think that this is just such
a beautiful thing to say that, Okay, the romantic side
has ended, but we still love each other. And Mary said,
one thing which was always constant was the love. We
knew we could trust each other and we were safe
with it each other. We knew that we could never
hurt each other on purpose. That was from Okay Magazine
in two thousand. But I think that that's just a
(15:07):
really beautiful thing to say. We still trust each other
and we've got each other's back and we always will.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
This is hook hitched and hung up, and we are
digging into the great loves of Freddie Mercury, one of
the most iconic rock stars of our time. Now, we've
been talking a fair bit about Freddie's relationship with Mary Austin,
but we've reached the time in his life where he
started to date more and more men. So firstly, there
was a man named David Mins. They lived together in
an apartment that Freddie bought, and it's believed that Freddie
(15:42):
wrote the very famous song which is You Take My
Breath Away and good old fashioned lover Boys about this man. Now,
that relationship didn't last all that long because he, like
I said, wanted to keep it private. And I think
that there's this reoccurring theme in Freddie's relationships where he
doesn't want to publish we talk about or acknowledge his relationships,
(16:02):
and his partners become quite upset by that and it
becomes a tension point in their relationships. He then also
goes on to date Vince the Barman. It's a bit
of an interesting one, because you would think that the
world's biggest superstar wanting to date you and then saying
come with me on tour. Vince the Barman turned around
and said, I'm not going to come on tour with you.
(16:23):
I'm not going to quit my job and sacrifice my
life to come and slot into your life and do
what you want to do, because you're probably just going
to drop me six months later.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
It's crazy, isn't It's crazy to think that you'd say
no toe someone saying give up your bard job to
come travel the world with me and see the riches,
and you're like mad, Rather do you? I'd rather say yeah.
He probably did know that he was just going to
dump him in six months time.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
So after this is a period where Freddie dates Winnie
Kirschberger and he is a German restauranteur. I guess that
this is a really significant one because after dating Mary,
this is the first person that Freddie says was his
deep love. He would call Winnie his husband, even though
obviously gay marriage was illegal at that time. He wrote
It's a Hard Life about Winnie Kirschberger, and they lived
(17:07):
together for three years. Freddy also bought Winnie a flat
there's a real theme of.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
I love you have a flat. Hey, here's another flat,
live by me. Here's another one. He might have just
had like a compound where all his ex lovers lived
in flats on the farm. That would have been ideal.
Happens on a big padding somewhere else. I just love
you all. They didn't last long. They ended up breaking
up because apparently there was just too much difficulty with
the language barrier because he was German, and I think
(17:32):
that is a big deal. If you can't openly communicate,
I guess that is the demise of the relationship. And
that's what Freddy says happened in that relationship.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Next in the line of relationships was one that was
a very problematic. So Freddy dated a man named Bill
Reid in nineteen eighty two. This was an explosive, volatile,
terrible relationship, and there was also assault that happened in
this relationship. Bill actually bit Freddy on the hand and
Freddie ended up in hospital with the like the Bible,
(18:00):
So it must have been bad enough to end up
in hospital. There was reports that before a big performance
on Saturday Night Live, Freddy and Bill had been at
it screaming at each other, like yelling at each other
so much that Freddy had completely lost his voice, and
that he then had to steam his voice for hours
before the show in order to be able to get
his voice back to be able to perform. So it
(18:21):
just sounds like this relationship that happened was terribly volatile
and really toxic.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
What is it, Freddie? You guys are running ten? Oh
my god? Why is this so steaming? Here?
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (18:35):
My voice?
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Also?
Speaker 1 (18:36):
I need more lemon and money. What's that smell? It's
the oils of all of us? What the hell is
that ol of us? It's a dick congestant love from
the chemist? Does it work? Well? Damn well? Hope. So
I think what we're establishing is that Freddie's lost his
voice and he's doing everything he can to steam it
(18:58):
and get it better so he can go and perform.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
He did recover, He did perform on Saturday Night Live,
but it was a bit of tension leading up to that. Thankfully,
the volatile relationship that they had it did not last long. Now,
there were some other relationships after this after Bill, and
some of them were quite profound. But I mean, we
weren't here just to talk about all of Freddie's love life,
the one that we were wanting to focus on is
Jim Hutton. And Jim Hutton is Freddie's partner, his life
(19:23):
partner that he was with up until the day that
he passed away.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Excuse me, I'm sorry, parted me. Hello there, Hi, I'm
Freddie Jim. Welcome to Heaven.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Oh yeah, you're pretty confident, aren't you.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
No this club that's called Heaven? Oh of course, Well,
nice to meet you. I'm Freddie. You said that already,
Freddie Mercury. That is okay. You don't know who I am? Well,
apparently you're Freddie Mercury. You don't know who Queen is.
(20:03):
I know plenty of queens. Can I buy you a drink?
I don't think so. Have a good night, Freddy from Queen.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
So unlike in the movie Bohemian Rhapsody, when Freddy first
met Jim at a nightclub at Call with Heaven, it
was a gay club and it was around nineteen eighty five,
and Jim had no idea who Freddy was.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
I love recognizing him.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
And also, Jim Hutton wasn't a bartender as the movie implied.
He was a hairdresser originally from Ireland, and the reason
why Jim said no to Freddie buying him a drink
was because Jim was actually in a relationship with somebody else,
so he was like, no, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
It's pretty crazy. He didn't recognize him though, because this
is Queen already huge. They'd already released Bohemian rhaptody Don't
Stop Me Now, another one bites the dust under pressure,
like all their big bangers. It would have been a
real kick in the guts for Freddy to be like, oh,
when the whole world is bowing down, when he's like,
I have no idea who you are, what.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Fucking great songs are. Even when you say that, and
you're like, don't stop me NOWT tell him go stop
me now, it just dumb, like that's you can't even
read the words without it's about coming into your head anyway,
So exactly, he had no idea who he was, and
that would have been a real kick in the teeth.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
But anyway, it goes on.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Eighteen months later, the two of them meet in a
different nightclub Autio and then they start dating. Imagine like
going home that night and being Jim Hutton and being like,
I think I said no to the guy from Kui.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
He wouldn't have known, but I would have seen him eventually,
maybe on a TV and being like, who knows, blew
that one? This is true.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
I think the really cute thing about the two of
them together as well is that they kind of look
a little bit like carbon copies of each other. They
have matching mustaches, they're wearing white singlets. Actually they look
like they kind of could be related. But it does
look cute.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
They moved pretty fast, didn't they, because they moved in
together after any about a year.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Although they were supposed to be in a committed relationship.
And this seems to be something that kind of comes
up throughout a lot of Freddy's dating is his own promiscuities,
having affairs or having one night stands, which unfortunately seems
like it's synonymous with that type of like complete rock
star stardom.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Well, he was seen leaving Heaven that nightclub with another man.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
It came out that Freddy had cheated on Jim with
this guy from the nightclub.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Well supposedly they'd been seen together.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
So it was at this time that Jim had given
Freddy an ultimatum and said, you know, obviously he'd been
seen leaving this nightclub with another man. They'd been all
this suspicion around cheating, and the ultimatum was either you
commit to the relationship or the relationship is over. And
that is the time Freddie made up his mind. And
despite that turbulence at the beginning, they settled into life together.
Deep down, I think the big thing about this was
(22:37):
that Jim didn't care about his fame. He loved Freddy
for who he was, but wasn't wrapped up in the
excitement or the fanfare or the glory that came with
dating the lead singer of Queen. Jim actually went on
to write a book after Freddie's passing called Mercury and Me,
and in the book he says, deep down, I think
that he wanted to be secure with someone who was
down to earth and not impressed by who he was.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Yeah, I think that's exactly it. He wanted to be
with somebody that didn't care who he was. He wanted
a normal life. He wanted to come in, lay down
on a lounge, watch TV, cook some dinner, and just
have this life away from the spotlight. That's what he
got with Jim. There's a quote from Jim's memoir. I'd
get him from work, would lie together on the sofa.
He would massage my feet and ask about my day,
just really really pushing home the normality that they craved
(23:21):
and that they had, And that's what obviously they cherished together,
a life away from the spotlight.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
They actually did have this really beautiful, domestic, blue life
together when Freddy wasn't on the road, and they lived
in Kensington, a pretty historic and wealthy part of London,
which is not surprising, in a house which was called
Garden Lodge.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
I used to live near Kensington in London, actually, but
I don't think I lived in a house as grand
Free Mercury. I lived in a very tiny apartment. Well, okay,
I mean Garden Lodge. It's gorgeous.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
It's this neo Georgian style two story, eight bedrooms.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Why do you need eight bedrooms and there's only two
of you staying there? Because you're Freddie Mercury. You need
it for your aunt.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Probably It was built in the early nineteen hundreds for
a couple who were also in the arm and also
needed eight bedrooms.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
One was a sculptor, one was a painter.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
It also has a full acre of landscape gardens all
the way around, and it's hidden from the street by
an eight foot stone wall.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
All I can think about is that I'd have so
many dogs. I would just be like crazy dog lady.
All these bedrooms for dogs, all these beautiful landscape grounds
for dogs. That's where I'm going.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Well, unlike Freddie and Jim, who just had all these
bedrooms for cats.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I know, you couldn't be more opposite, but I think
it's really nice that they've got this little private life
away from the paparazzi, away from prying eyes. They did,
at the end of the day, just want to live
a normal life together. They laid on the lounge, they chatted,
they had their cats, and I think they just that
was their point in life where they were like, you
know what, let's be normal human beings doing normal things,
(24:43):
normal couples. Let's not be the most famous rock star
in the world. And I think that that's really special.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Yeah, And I guess also with this house, like privacy
was obviously something that was so paramount to them, Like
they were at a point in their life where, you know,
I think if you have a house that has a.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Huge stone wall at the front of it.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
That's a pretty clear indication that you want you've got inside,
is something that's special that you're wanting to keep private.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Oh yeah, like an eight foot stone wall screams fuck
off to me. I was like, don't come anywhere near us.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
And even though gay marriage was illegal, Freddie and Jim
would still wear wedding rings, so they still considered each
other to be husbands. They did everything that you would
do in a union in a married union, they just
didn't officially have the certificate. And I think the reason
that they lasted so much and they had this beautiful
relationship is all of Freddie's past boyfriends, they all wanted
to come out and be very out and proud and
(25:30):
let everyone.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Know about it, tell everybody. They didn't want it to
be a secret like Freddie wanted. Because Freddy hadn't even
come out to his parents. You have to remember, like
this was something Freddy was dealing with very privately, and
I think Jim came along and was the first person
to say, I respect that, I'm on board with that.
I want my life with you, and I also want
it to be private. And that's why it worked.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
And I think we can't stress enough how this was
of such a different time, even though it wasn't that
long ago. The views and perceptions of society were so
very different back then as well.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
And imagine it's be a beautiful thing to have this
private life and this really special moments with someone, but
then also get to go and see the effect they
have on the world. Because Jim got to go and
see some of Freddie's biggest moments. So the Live AID concepts,
you just think, this is one of the greatest performers
of all time, and Jim got to sit there and
experience that. There's a quote from Jim's memoir. I was gobsmacked.
(26:21):
You could feel the effect his stage presence had on
the crowd. Afterwards, Elton John came and said, bastard, you've
stolen it. Imagine being off the side of that stage
watching him, just being like that guy's mind that is
my boyfriend. You would be so ridiculously proud. I'm proud,
and I don't even know them.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
This is, however, where the story of Freddie Mercury and Jim,
I think, becomes quite tragic. So two years after the
Live Aid concert, Freddy was diagnosed with AIDS. That has
such a profound impact on their relationship. Jim became a
care for Freddy as he got sick. When Freddie first
found out that he was so sick, he tried to
push Jim away and didn't want to be in the
relationship anymore because he didn't want Jim to become this
(27:05):
person who had to care for him as his body
failed him. So Freddy had told Jim, I would understand
if you wanted to pack your bags and leave, and
Hunton replied, don't be stupid.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
I'm not going anywhere, and I'm here for the long hall,
which is what love is.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
You all right, fred I want to look at my artworks.
I want to see my collection. I don't think I've
ever told you where I got them from, at least
not all of them.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Are you sure you can get up? I can get up?
But how will I get downstairs? I'll carry you, No,
I think I can do it.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
This was one of the last conversations that Freddy and
Jim ever had, and Jim talked about it in his book,
and I think it's just so devastating how this has
been captured that like the last days of his life,
especially around talking about Jim being this care for him.
Like having to help him down the stairs so that
Freddie can just sit there and take in his paintings
and take in his life. I wonder whether he knew
(27:59):
that his life was coming so close to an end,
or whether it was just that he was becoming more frail.
But it's just this would have been an incredibly sad
time for both of them.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
You can can't imagine what it's like knowing that you
are literally living each day by the minute, you're holding
on to every single moment as it could be a
last I just can't imagine.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
So in nineteen ninety one, Freddy had put out a
statement which came out via his publicist and that confirmed
that he had AIDS. So even though his disease was
so incredibly progressed by this point in time, nobody knew
about it. It wasn't something that had been talked about publicly.
He had kept everything to himself. Only twenty four hours
after that statement was made, Freddie actually died, and he
(28:39):
died not of AIDS, but of the complications that come
from AIDS.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
He died of bronchial pneumonia. Jim and Freddy had been
together for about seven years now, so it's a very
significant amount of time to have spent every day together.
And I can't imagine what the last few years were
like and how close they would have come caring for
each other. I'm sure Freddy gave something back to Jim
in an emotional sense and a really loving sense, and
(29:03):
they spent some of their best, most important years together.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Jim stood by him throughout the entire process of his illness.
You know what that looked like from start and to finish.
He was there for the whole thing. Now, alongside this
journey was Mary, Freddie's first love. Mary was there also
as a kerer and as a friend throughout their entire
relationship and throughout his entire sickness, which is what leads
into the most sort of incredible part of this whole story.
(29:29):
And it is around what Freddy did with all of
his crazy amounts of money and his estate.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
So it's not what you think, is it. Well, no,
and the.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Thing is is, like we said earlier, he lived in
the Garden Lodge with Jim. That was their home that
they made together, the two of them. Now, in passing,
Freddy left five hundred thousand pounds to Jim, equating to
about a million dollars at that time, so it wasn't
a small amount of money, but in comparison to what
his enormous wealth was worth, that was a really small
(30:00):
amount of money. But he left the estate, He left
the rest of his money, and literally the home that
was Jim's home, which he thought he would continue to
live in.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
He left it all to Mary, which is insane because
he goes on to say how they were live partners
and how much they loved each other, and obviously Jim
cared for him. In comparison to what Mary was left,
Jim was left not a lot. And then the fact
that Mary then gave Jim three months to leave the house.
So she's come and said, cool, it's done, it's over,
(30:33):
you need to leave. This doesn't sit well with me.
It's so unsettling, and I guess we're never going to
know if this was Freddie's wish or if there wasn't
communication between the three of them. Jim tried to fight
that and say, no, Freddie would have wanted me to
stay here, like this is our family home, please don't
kick me out kind of thing, and she just said
you need to go. And I just find this all
a very unusual situation because you think that they would
(30:55):
have worked together to come to some sort of a resolution.
It's not like there wasn't enough money need to go around.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
It does sound incredibly harsh that Mary would get Jim
to leave his home three months after his partner passes away. However,
like you said, Britt, there must be so much more
to this, and there has to be more that nobody knows.
You know, there's always two sides to a story, and
then the truth is somewhere in the middle, right, And
the other part as well, is that Freddie was cremated,
the ashes were given to Mary, and Mary spread the ashes. Now, Mary,
(31:24):
to this day is the only person who knows where
Freddie's ashes remain, and she said that she will take
that to her grave and no one will ever know
because it's a secret that Freddy asked her to keep.
So as much as I know that, we look at
this and we think, like, how can you be with
someone for seven years? And then that be the resolution
when you think of it in comparison to the relationship
that he had with Mary, which spanned for out pretty
(31:47):
much his entire life, from his you know, from being
nineteen years old. I guess when you draw that comparison,
you can kind of understand a little bit more why
you might leave everything to Mary. But I can understand
if you were Jim, why you'd feel like that was
a slap in the face.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Why we definitely feel like that was a slap in
the face.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Yeah, or like it undermined your relationship. Even I can't
imagine what that would feel like. But Jim did go on.
He took the money that Freddy left him. He went
on to move back to Ireland and bought a property there.
So it's not as though he stayed in England and
you know, was destitute by any means. But it's just
a very interesting end to the to the life. And
I guess it was a surprising end.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
And Jim ended up living a very long life. He
died in twenty ten, even though he battled AIDS as well.
It wasn't AIDS that he passed away from an end,
It was lung cancer.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
I hate that we've gotten to the end of this
story and we don't have a happy ending to wrap
it all up into a nice little bow. Freddy had
to live a life that was private, He had to
hide away who he was in many ways, because the
views of society didn't match up to who he was
as a person, or you know, we weren't accepting of
being gay, being bisexual. Our social views at that time
were very rigid. Even though Freddy and Jim lived this
(32:53):
beautiful life together, I think it's really sad that they
weren't able to just live it freely and openly and
authentically for fear of Yeah, and it is a story
of a lot of beautiful love stories in a lot
of different capacities, but at the end it doesn't really
have the happy ending that we're after. That's real life, baby,
(33:15):
That is it. From as Thanks for joining us for
another episode of Hooked, Hitched, and hung Up. This is
a podcast from iHeart Podcast Australia, Dead sit Studios and
the Kiss Network.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Make sure you follow on your podcast app and listen
to any of the previous episodes that you might have missed,
because there are some pretty wild stories out there.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Join us next time for some more breakups and makeups
and some more of the spiciest celebrity relationships of all time.
Hooked, Hitched and Hung Up acknowledges the traditional custodians of
country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community.
We pay our respect to their elders past and present
and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander peoples today. This episode was recorded on Walla Medical Land.
(00:20):
Just a heads up, guys, this episode's got a bit
of spicy language in it, so it might not be
the episode if you've got little ones around.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Welcome to Hooked, Hitched, and Hung Up, the show where
we take you inside the spiciest celebrity relationship stories of
our time.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I'm Laura Burn and I'm Britney Hockley.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Now this is one of the greatest rock stars of
all time, a story that everybody knows a bit about,
but maybe doesn't know everything about. We're talking about Queen's frontman, Freddie.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Mercury, who doesn't love Freddie Mercury.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Now, a lot of us might be familiar with the
story of Mary, his first big relationship, and that is
a real important parts. So we're kind of doing this
episode in two parts because we're talking about Mary, because
the relationship never really ends but we're also talking about
another very big relationship from Freddy's life with the person
that he was with when his life came to.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
An end, and that is Jim Hutton.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
All right, now, this episode we are unpacking Freddy Mercury's
love life.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
It's a tumultuous love life, that's the way that I
would use.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, And there's some really like heartbreaking moments throughout his
life as well. And I think the thing that's interesting
about this episode is that on the other episodes we
have picked truly one relationship, We've gone on a deep
dive on one person. But because Freddie Mercury's life has
been so intertwined with a number of people, and more
so Mary, who's the woman who he started his relationships with.
(01:52):
She was his very first fiance and he calls her
the love of his life. She comes up throughout this
whole story. So even though this is suppose to be
an episode about Freddie Mercury and Jim Hutton, it truly
is a story of just Freddie Mercury's love life in
total as a whole. As a whole, but also I
think for us to be able to start his story
and to really give you an idea of who he
(02:12):
is as a person.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
We've got to start at the beginning. That's generally where
we start our stories, isn't it, Laura.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
But we're going all the way back to the beginning,
to where he was born, so like the very further
womb once upon a time when Freddie Mercury was an embryo.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
No, we're gonna go back all the way. Could you
imagine him dancing around as an emberor would have been
wild in there? Well? Okay.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Freddie Mercury was born in nineteen forty six in Stonetown,
which is a part of Zanzibar now we know of
it as Tanzania.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
East Africa. His childhood was.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
So colorful and so rich in different cultures. When he
was born, he wasn't called Freddie Mercury, so his original
birth name.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Was Faroke Bulsara.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Freddy's parents are passy people of western India and they
moved to Zanzibar for Freddy's father's work before he was even.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Born as a child, was he always like a musical prodigy?
Was he doing music as a kid or did he
come into that later in life?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
So he was taking piano lessons by the age of
seven and was already very musically inclined as a little kid.
When he was eight years old, Freddy was shipped off
and out of his family home to a boarding school
and it was like a British style boys boarding school
in India. He joined a band when he was in
this British boys boarding school. Say that ten times fast.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Banned in the British boys boarding school, and it was
called the Hectics, where he played rock and roll covers.
I did read that when he was at boarding school,
his friends used to to say that he had this
uncanny ability to listen to the radio and replay immediately
what he heard on the piano, like some people were
(03:45):
just naturally inclined that way. So he was just born
as like a child prodigy, I guess, okay.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Well, also at this time when he was in the
y the Hectics band, so this is when he started
to go by.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
The name Freddie, but not by Freddie Mercury, just Freddy.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
So in nineteen sixty four, the next year, just after
Freddy had moved back to live with his parents in Zanzibar,
the whole family moved to England. They've immigrated to the
UK as him being a sixteen year old boy, and
he's always been in this very creative field. He got
a diploma in graphic design. He also went on to
(04:18):
do a couple of different little bands. Like music was
always there and it was always his passion, but it
wasn't what he went into with the intention of that
being his long term career.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
So he's doing all these little bands, but is this
what's bringing him money? Like were these bands successful or
was he? I mean at the corner store, Like, how
is Freddie surviving at this time?
Speaker 2 (04:36):
He's not out there cracking big money from doing music,
but he was working in a secondhand Edwardian clothing store.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
It's like it's like the old Royal era, isn't it.
I'm looking at my producers like they're not in, not
in Yeah, yeah, okay, we're right, Were's okay.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
The reason why this store, though, is very important is
because that's where he met Roger Taylor. So Roger Taylor
would go on to become Queen's drummer. So in nineteen seventy,
Freddy joined the band Smile. He joined Roger Taylor and
Brian May's band as the lead singer.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
I always get down his rabbit hole of like, how
crazy it is that the universe put these two people
together out of everyone in the world. Freddie's working at
a secondhand clothing store, Edwardian Clothing Store, where he happens
to meet someone called Roger Taylor. Combined they become the
greatest band of all time. What if he didn't take
that job, what would have happened? Would Queen have existed?
(05:29):
Who knows? You know what I always think.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
I always feel sorry for the person who was the
previous singer, who was like, fuck this band, I'm.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Going to go do something else, so I'm going to frown.
Oh god.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
That was so in nineteen seventy one, that is when
they're bassist John Deacon joined Smile as well, and it
was shortly after that that Freddie put it out there
that he thought that the name Smile maybe it didn't
really represent what the band or the direction that the
band was going in, and he floated the idea of
the name Queen. Around the same time, Freddy also legally
(06:02):
changed his name, so he changed his surname to Mercury,
which was taken from his own song that he'd written,
which was called My Fairy King. And that is how
Freddie Mercury was born.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
I remember it. This wasn't a straight to the top
path for Queen. It wasn't like they were born. They
started a band and then they were number one because
they came to Australia in nineteen seventy four and they
played at the Sunbury Pop Festival. They were actually like
booed off the stage by the audience. People weren't frothing them.
Freddie turned around to the crowd and he said, when
we come back to Australia, Queen will be the biggest
(06:36):
band in the world. And I am sorry, but we
all need a little bit of Freddy's confidence to be
booed off the stage and be like I'm going to
come back at number one in the world. I think
we can all learn something from that too. You were
about believing in yourself. I mean, Australia's always a little
bit behind the times, aren't we. Well he really did
stick to his word, because they did become the biggest
band of all time, and they started touring, playing till
hundreds of thousands of people at a time, and they
(06:57):
started partying so hard like they were to find rock stars.
Elton John actually even said that Queen could out party,
even him at the time. And that's saying something because
Elton John was pretty wild. I mean, we've all seen
Elton John's movie as well. I mean that was that
said something.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
But there is a quote from NME Music magazine which
says Queen were well known in the industry for the
outrageous shindigs. Most notably was the jazz launch party at
the New Orleans Fairmount Hotel in nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Which featured wholesome delights.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
These are the wholesome delights, Brittany, including nude waiters and waitresses,
a fellow biting heads off live chickens.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
What naked models wrestling in a liver pit? What is
a liver pit? I'm assuming a pit of liver.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
And people sworning around with trays of cocaine strapped to them.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
I'm all for a party, but this is not my
kind of party. This is like animal cruelty. Maybe I
could get around like like fine with people strapped with cocaine. No,
maybe the nude waiters and waitresses mabably not at their
dialok like chantining tainum. I don't know. I have questions,
but no, the rest of that is wild.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
This isn't this just crazy that this sort of like
behavior is like synonymous with mega starret and partying.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
There are no rules for them.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Now we need to backtrack a little bit in order
to tell you the story about Mary. She plays such
a huge part in Freddie's life. Throughout his whole life,
Freddie was very private as well. Whilst he was obviously
a very public figure and very loved around the world,
he cherished a lot of his private life. So I
think she actually meant a lot more to him than
we probably saw. They just had something that was completely
(08:30):
different but really really profound to them that maybe a
lot of people didn't understand in the long term. But
let's get back to how they actually met and what
happened at the start. So Mary Austin and Freddie met
when she was nineteen and he was twenty four, so
their relationship progressed really really quickly. They were soon living
together in a flat near Kensington Market, which is where
Freddie and Roger worked at the Edwardian costume store. And
(08:51):
then four years later, in nineteen seventy three, Freddie proposed
in what is I mean? It's a very unique lovely
way of proposing, and he kind of had like a
bush good dole of presence.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
For her unique and lovely way proposing is subjective. Oh okay,
that's really setting a special mood.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Well, it's a special moment, and I have a special
gift for you.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Wait here, Freddy, what is that? Well it's quite clearly
a box, Darling. What's ridiculous? Why is it so big?
See what's inside? Oh it's just another box. Oh that's right. Okay,
see what's inside that box? Another box? You're taking the piers,
(09:39):
Keep going, Darling, Freddy, it's beautiful inside.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
The final small little box was an engagement ring made
out of jade, which I love. That is something different,
not a diamond.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
I love that they got together and Mary fell in
love with him before he famous. He was just in
a little apartment. He didn't have the money yet, he
didn't have the fame. She just loved him for who
he was, and he grew into that and she grew
with him. And I think that's why their love lasted
so many years, because they knew each other and they
had a foundation. And I guess, Freddie, it would be
so hard if you had that level of fame to
(10:18):
trust people. And I think you would question everyone that
came into your life. Everyone has an ulterior motive. Everyone
wants something for you. He was holding onto something and
someone that he could trust wholeheartedly because she was there
from the beginning. So I think that's a really beautiful thing.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
At the time, she thought he was heterosexual, like she
thought that they were in a long term They're going
to be in a heterosexual relationship. But Mary started to
realize either he wasn't aware of his own sexuality yet,
he wasn't ready to admit what his sexuality was, but
there was a like it didn't line up, and she
was suspicious of it. And it was Mary who was
the one who who brought it up with Freddie and
(10:55):
was like, I think you are bisexual. So from all reports,
it was Mary who pushed Freddy to have those conversations
and who pushed Freddy to be more transparent around his sexuality.
There is actually an interview which came from Enemy magazine,
and the interviewer asked Freddy at the time, so how
about being bent. This was in nineteen seventy four, so
it was not long after Mary and Freddy had actually
(11:17):
gotten engaged. So even though he was living this heterosexual
life with a fiance, there was still some speculation and
rumor around what his sexuality was.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Imagine an interviewer asking anyone, oh, you would verien age,
how about being bent? As a question, you'd never It's
so invasive and outrageous that somebody could think that they're
entitled to that information from someone different world, different world
and different time. And Freddie's response to that was, you.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Were a crafty cow. Let's put it this way. There's
times when I was young and green. It's a thing
schoolboys go through. I've had my share of schoolboy pranks.
I'm not going to elaborate any further. There have been
some other reports that have come out where Freddy has
commented that that is where his first sexual experiences happened.
But imagine being in Mary's position, where you've just gotten
(12:06):
engaged and there's these speculations around your partner's sexuality and
whether they're being transparent with you or not.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I also love his answers. They're always so ambiguous, Like
he's like, he gives an answer, but you're like, I
don't you finished the conversation. You're like, don't actually know
what he said. You're like, you didn't answer anything. He
could have been. A politician or a musician is what
he could have been.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
It's believed that Freddy started secretly dating men towards the
end of his relationship with Mary, so there was some
overlap there. And obviously if you're being cheated on, that's
when Mary started to feel suspicious that something was going on.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Well, yes, if you're partnersheating on you with men, you
would be suspicious as well.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
You'd be right, you'd be suspicious anyway. Like if it
doesn't matter who, what the sex of the partner is,
if there's cheating going on, you usually can sense that
something has shifted. I just want to read this one quote,
which was from two thousand and interview with Okay magazine,
and Mary said, I told him something is going on,
and I just feel like there is a noose around
my neck. I think it's time for me to go.
But he insisted nothing wrong. Then his life rocketed, the
(13:02):
band got successful. Things were never going to be the
same after that, and that's when our relationship cooled. I
felt that he was avoiding any confrontation with me. When
I came home from work, he just wouldn't be there.
He would come in late we weren't as close as
what we had been in the past. That was the
time when everything coincided, his career was going gangbusters and
their relationship was starting to fizzle.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
I mean, it must be so hard to be living
I guess a lie like living a relationship for Freddie,
he obviously loved Mary very very much, but not in
the way that he wanted from a partner. It must
be really, really hard to feel like you can't live
your true life and be your authentic self. And he
would have felt like he was trapped in a box,
like how do you break away from that? And it's
(13:45):
not even a normal situation. You have to break away
from that and find out who you are and what
you want in front of the entire world. I cannot
imagine the pressure that he would have felt.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Mary went to Freddy and said, I'll never forget that moment.
I remember saying to him, no, fred I don't think
that you're bisexual.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
I think that you were gay.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
That quote is from an interview that Mary actually did
with The Daily Mail. Mary also remembers that it was
an affirming moment for Freddy as well, because Freddie went
on to say it felt good about being able to
finally have revealed his bisexuality to someone. So it was
almost for him like this huge weight had been lifted
and he didn't have to live a lie to the
person who he loved the most in the world. And eventually,
which is the craziest part of this whole story, is
(14:24):
that Mary moved out. So Mary moved out of their
shared apartment, but she moved out to a place that
was only just around the corner because he wanted her
to stay close to him. So Mary told Okay Magazine,
Eventually I found a place nearby which he wanted me
to have. It was perfect for a single person such
as myself. His music publishing company bought it for me
(14:44):
for thirty thousand pounds.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
So he bought her a house and they lived down
the road. And I think that this is just such
a beautiful thing to say that, Okay, the romantic side
has ended, but we still love each other. And Mary said,
one thing which was always constant was the love. We
knew we could trust each other and we were safe
with it each other. We knew that we could never
hurt each other on purpose. That was from Okay Magazine
in two thousand. But I think that that's just a
(15:07):
really beautiful thing to say. We still trust each other
and we've got each other's back and we always will.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
This is hook hitched and hung up, and we are
digging into the great loves of Freddie Mercury, one of
the most iconic rock stars of our time. Now, we've
been talking a fair bit about Freddie's relationship with Mary Austin,
but we've reached the time in his life where he
started to date more and more men. So firstly, there
was a man named David Mins. They lived together in
an apartment that Freddie bought, and it's believed that Freddie
(15:42):
wrote the very famous song which is You Take My
Breath Away and good old fashioned lover Boys about this man. Now,
that relationship didn't last all that long because he, like
I said, wanted to keep it private. And I think
that there's this reoccurring theme in Freddie's relationships where he
doesn't want to publish we talk about or acknowledge his relationships,
(16:02):
and his partners become quite upset by that and it
becomes a tension point in their relationships. He then also
goes on to date Vince the Barman. It's a bit
of an interesting one, because you would think that the
world's biggest superstar wanting to date you and then saying
come with me on tour. Vince the Barman turned around
and said, I'm not going to come on tour with you.
(16:23):
I'm not going to quit my job and sacrifice my
life to come and slot into your life and do
what you want to do, because you're probably just going
to drop me six months later.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
It's crazy, isn't It's crazy to think that you'd say
no toe someone saying give up your bard job to
come travel the world with me and see the riches,
and you're like mad, Rather do you? I'd rather say yeah.
He probably did know that he was just going to
dump him in six months time.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
So after this is a period where Freddie dates Winnie
Kirschberger and he is a German restauranteur. I guess that
this is a really significant one because after dating Mary,
this is the first person that Freddie says was his
deep love. He would call Winnie his husband, even though
obviously gay marriage was illegal at that time. He wrote
It's a Hard Life about Winnie Kirschberger, and they lived
(17:07):
together for three years. Freddy also bought Winnie a flat
there's a real theme of.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
I love you have a flat. Hey, here's another flat,
live by me. Here's another one. He might have just
had like a compound where all his ex lovers lived
in flats on the farm. That would have been ideal.
Happens on a big padding somewhere else. I just love
you all. They didn't last long. They ended up breaking
up because apparently there was just too much difficulty with
the language barrier because he was German, and I think
(17:32):
that is a big deal. If you can't openly communicate,
I guess that is the demise of the relationship. And
that's what Freddy says happened in that relationship.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Next in the line of relationships was one that was
a very problematic. So Freddy dated a man named Bill
Reid in nineteen eighty two. This was an explosive, volatile,
terrible relationship, and there was also assault that happened in
this relationship. Bill actually bit Freddy on the hand and
Freddie ended up in hospital with the like the Bible,
(18:00):
So it must have been bad enough to end up
in hospital. There was reports that before a big performance
on Saturday Night Live, Freddy and Bill had been at
it screaming at each other, like yelling at each other
so much that Freddy had completely lost his voice, and
that he then had to steam his voice for hours
before the show in order to be able to get
his voice back to be able to perform. So it
(18:21):
just sounds like this relationship that happened was terribly volatile
and really toxic.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
What is it, Freddie? You guys are running ten? Oh
my god? Why is this so steaming? Here?
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (18:35):
My voice?
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Also?
Speaker 1 (18:36):
I need more lemon and money. What's that smell? It's
the oils of all of us? What the hell is
that ol of us? It's a dick congestant love from
the chemist? Does it work? Well? Damn well? Hope. So
I think what we're establishing is that Freddie's lost his
voice and he's doing everything he can to steam it
(18:58):
and get it better so he can go and perform.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
He did recover, He did perform on Saturday Night Live,
but it was a bit of tension leading up to that. Thankfully,
the volatile relationship that they had it did not last long. Now,
there were some other relationships after this after Bill, and
some of them were quite profound. But I mean, we
weren't here just to talk about all of Freddie's love life,
the one that we were wanting to focus on is
Jim Hutton. And Jim Hutton is Freddie's partner, his life
(19:23):
partner that he was with up until the day that
he passed away.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Excuse me, I'm sorry, parted me. Hello there, Hi, I'm
Freddie Jim. Welcome to Heaven.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Oh yeah, you're pretty confident, aren't you.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
No this club that's called Heaven? Oh of course, Well,
nice to meet you. I'm Freddie. You said that already,
Freddie Mercury. That is okay. You don't know who I am? Well,
apparently you're Freddie Mercury. You don't know who Queen is.
(20:03):
I know plenty of queens. Can I buy you a drink?
I don't think so. Have a good night, Freddy from Queen.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
So unlike in the movie Bohemian Rhapsody, when Freddy first
met Jim at a nightclub at Call with Heaven, it
was a gay club and it was around nineteen eighty five,
and Jim had no idea who Freddy was.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
I love recognizing him.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
And also, Jim Hutton wasn't a bartender as the movie implied.
He was a hairdresser originally from Ireland, and the reason
why Jim said no to Freddie buying him a drink
was because Jim was actually in a relationship with somebody else,
so he was like, no, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
It's pretty crazy. He didn't recognize him though, because this
is Queen already huge. They'd already released Bohemian rhaptody Don't
Stop Me Now, another one bites the dust under pressure,
like all their big bangers. It would have been a
real kick in the guts for Freddy to be like, oh,
when the whole world is bowing down, when he's like,
I have no idea who you are, what.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Fucking great songs are. Even when you say that, and
you're like, don't stop me NOWT tell him go stop
me now, it just dumb, like that's you can't even
read the words without it's about coming into your head anyway,
So exactly, he had no idea who he was, and
that would have been a real kick in the teeth.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
But anyway, it goes on.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Eighteen months later, the two of them meet in a
different nightclub Autio and then they start dating. Imagine like
going home that night and being Jim Hutton and being like,
I think I said no to the guy from Kui.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
He wouldn't have known, but I would have seen him eventually,
maybe on a TV and being like, who knows, blew
that one? This is true.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
I think the really cute thing about the two of
them together as well is that they kind of look
a little bit like carbon copies of each other. They
have matching mustaches, they're wearing white singlets. Actually they look
like they kind of could be related. But it does
look cute.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
They moved pretty fast, didn't they, because they moved in
together after any about a year.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Although they were supposed to be in a committed relationship.
And this seems to be something that kind of comes
up throughout a lot of Freddy's dating is his own promiscuities,
having affairs or having one night stands, which unfortunately seems
like it's synonymous with that type of like complete rock
star stardom.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Well, he was seen leaving Heaven that nightclub with another man.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
It came out that Freddy had cheated on Jim with
this guy from the nightclub.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Well supposedly they'd been seen together.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
So it was at this time that Jim had given
Freddy an ultimatum and said, you know, obviously he'd been
seen leaving this nightclub with another man. They'd been all
this suspicion around cheating, and the ultimatum was either you
commit to the relationship or the relationship is over. And
that is the time Freddie made up his mind. And
despite that turbulence at the beginning, they settled into life together.
Deep down, I think the big thing about this was
(22:37):
that Jim didn't care about his fame. He loved Freddy
for who he was, but wasn't wrapped up in the
excitement or the fanfare or the glory that came with
dating the lead singer of Queen. Jim actually went on
to write a book after Freddie's passing called Mercury and Me,
and in the book he says, deep down, I think
that he wanted to be secure with someone who was
down to earth and not impressed by who he was.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Yeah, I think that's exactly it. He wanted to be
with somebody that didn't care who he was. He wanted
a normal life. He wanted to come in, lay down
on a lounge, watch TV, cook some dinner, and just
have this life away from the spotlight. That's what he
got with Jim. There's a quote from Jim's memoir. I'd
get him from work, would lie together on the sofa.
He would massage my feet and ask about my day,
just really really pushing home the normality that they craved
(23:21):
and that they had, And that's what obviously they cherished together,
a life away from the spotlight.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
They actually did have this really beautiful, domestic, blue life
together when Freddy wasn't on the road, and they lived
in Kensington, a pretty historic and wealthy part of London,
which is not surprising, in a house which was called
Garden Lodge.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
I used to live near Kensington in London, actually, but
I don't think I lived in a house as grand
Free Mercury. I lived in a very tiny apartment. Well, okay,
I mean Garden Lodge. It's gorgeous.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
It's this neo Georgian style two story, eight bedrooms.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Why do you need eight bedrooms and there's only two
of you staying there? Because you're Freddie Mercury. You need
it for your aunt.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Probably It was built in the early nineteen hundreds for
a couple who were also in the arm and also
needed eight bedrooms.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
One was a sculptor, one was a painter.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
It also has a full acre of landscape gardens all
the way around, and it's hidden from the street by
an eight foot stone wall.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
All I can think about is that I'd have so
many dogs. I would just be like crazy dog lady.
All these bedrooms for dogs, all these beautiful landscape grounds
for dogs. That's where I'm going.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Well, unlike Freddie and Jim, who just had all these
bedrooms for cats.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I know, you couldn't be more opposite, but I think
it's really nice that they've got this little private life
away from the paparazzi, away from prying eyes. They did,
at the end of the day, just want to live
a normal life together. They laid on the lounge, they chatted,
they had their cats, and I think they just that
was their point in life where they were like, you
know what, let's be normal human beings doing normal things,
(24:43):
normal couples. Let's not be the most famous rock star
in the world. And I think that that's really special.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Yeah, And I guess also with this house, like privacy
was obviously something that was so paramount to them, Like
they were at a point in their life where, you know,
I think if you have a house that has a.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Huge stone wall at the front of it.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
That's a pretty clear indication that you want you've got inside,
is something that's special that you're wanting to keep private.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Oh yeah, like an eight foot stone wall screams fuck
off to me. I was like, don't come anywhere near us.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
And even though gay marriage was illegal, Freddie and Jim
would still wear wedding rings, so they still considered each
other to be husbands. They did everything that you would
do in a union in a married union, they just
didn't officially have the certificate. And I think the reason
that they lasted so much and they had this beautiful
relationship is all of Freddie's past boyfriends, they all wanted
to come out and be very out and proud and
(25:30):
let everyone.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Know about it, tell everybody. They didn't want it to
be a secret like Freddie wanted. Because Freddy hadn't even
come out to his parents. You have to remember, like
this was something Freddy was dealing with very privately, and
I think Jim came along and was the first person
to say, I respect that, I'm on board with that.
I want my life with you, and I also want
it to be private. And that's why it worked.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
And I think we can't stress enough how this was
of such a different time, even though it wasn't that
long ago. The views and perceptions of society were so
very different back then as well.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
And imagine it's be a beautiful thing to have this
private life and this really special moments with someone, but
then also get to go and see the effect they
have on the world. Because Jim got to go and
see some of Freddie's biggest moments. So the Live AID concepts,
you just think, this is one of the greatest performers
of all time, and Jim got to sit there and
experience that. There's a quote from Jim's memoir. I was gobsmacked.
(26:21):
You could feel the effect his stage presence had on
the crowd. Afterwards, Elton John came and said, bastard, you've
stolen it. Imagine being off the side of that stage
watching him, just being like that guy's mind that is
my boyfriend. You would be so ridiculously proud. I'm proud,
and I don't even know them.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
This is, however, where the story of Freddie Mercury and Jim,
I think, becomes quite tragic. So two years after the
Live Aid concert, Freddy was diagnosed with AIDS. That has
such a profound impact on their relationship. Jim became a
care for Freddy as he got sick. When Freddie first
found out that he was so sick, he tried to
push Jim away and didn't want to be in the
relationship anymore because he didn't want Jim to become this
(27:05):
person who had to care for him as his body
failed him. So Freddy had told Jim, I would understand
if you wanted to pack your bags and leave, and
Hunton replied, don't be stupid.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
I'm not going anywhere, and I'm here for the long hall,
which is what love is.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
You all right, fred I want to look at my artworks.
I want to see my collection. I don't think I've
ever told you where I got them from, at least
not all of them.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Are you sure you can get up? I can get up?
But how will I get downstairs? I'll carry you, No,
I think I can do it.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
This was one of the last conversations that Freddy and
Jim ever had, and Jim talked about it in his book,
and I think it's just so devastating how this has
been captured that like the last days of his life,
especially around talking about Jim being this care for him.
Like having to help him down the stairs so that
Freddie can just sit there and take in his paintings
and take in his life. I wonder whether he knew
(27:59):
that his life was coming so close to an end,
or whether it was just that he was becoming more frail.
But it's just this would have been an incredibly sad
time for both of them.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
You can can't imagine what it's like knowing that you
are literally living each day by the minute, you're holding
on to every single moment as it could be a
last I just can't imagine.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
So in nineteen ninety one, Freddy had put out a
statement which came out via his publicist and that confirmed
that he had AIDS. So even though his disease was
so incredibly progressed by this point in time, nobody knew
about it. It wasn't something that had been talked about publicly.
He had kept everything to himself. Only twenty four hours
after that statement was made, Freddie actually died, and he
(28:39):
died not of AIDS, but of the complications that come
from AIDS.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
He died of bronchial pneumonia. Jim and Freddy had been
together for about seven years now, so it's a very
significant amount of time to have spent every day together.
And I can't imagine what the last few years were
like and how close they would have come caring for
each other. I'm sure Freddy gave something back to Jim
in an emotional sense and a really loving sense, and
(29:03):
they spent some of their best, most important years together.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Jim stood by him throughout the entire process of his illness.
You know what that looked like from start and to finish.
He was there for the whole thing. Now, alongside this
journey was Mary, Freddie's first love. Mary was there also
as a kerer and as a friend throughout their entire
relationship and throughout his entire sickness, which is what leads
into the most sort of incredible part of this whole story.
(29:29):
And it is around what Freddy did with all of
his crazy amounts of money and his estate.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
So it's not what you think, is it. Well, no,
and the.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Thing is is, like we said earlier, he lived in
the Garden Lodge with Jim. That was their home that
they made together, the two of them. Now, in passing,
Freddy left five hundred thousand pounds to Jim, equating to
about a million dollars at that time, so it wasn't
a small amount of money, but in comparison to what
his enormous wealth was worth, that was a really small
(30:00):
amount of money. But he left the estate, He left
the rest of his money, and literally the home that
was Jim's home, which he thought he would continue to
live in.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
He left it all to Mary, which is insane because
he goes on to say how they were live partners
and how much they loved each other, and obviously Jim
cared for him. In comparison to what Mary was left,
Jim was left not a lot. And then the fact
that Mary then gave Jim three months to leave the house.
So she's come and said, cool, it's done, it's over,
(30:33):
you need to leave. This doesn't sit well with me.
It's so unsettling, and I guess we're never going to
know if this was Freddie's wish or if there wasn't
communication between the three of them. Jim tried to fight
that and say, no, Freddie would have wanted me to
stay here, like this is our family home, please don't
kick me out kind of thing, and she just said
you need to go. And I just find this all
a very unusual situation because you think that they would
(30:55):
have worked together to come to some sort of a resolution.
It's not like there wasn't enough money need to go around.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
It does sound incredibly harsh that Mary would get Jim
to leave his home three months after his partner passes away. However,
like you said, Britt, there must be so much more
to this, and there has to be more that nobody knows.
You know, there's always two sides to a story, and
then the truth is somewhere in the middle, right, And
the other part as well, is that Freddie was cremated,
the ashes were given to Mary, and Mary spread the ashes. Now, Mary,
(31:24):
to this day is the only person who knows where
Freddie's ashes remain, and she said that she will take
that to her grave and no one will ever know
because it's a secret that Freddy asked her to keep.
So as much as I know that, we look at
this and we think, like, how can you be with
someone for seven years? And then that be the resolution
when you think of it in comparison to the relationship
that he had with Mary, which spanned for out pretty
(31:47):
much his entire life, from his you know, from being
nineteen years old. I guess when you draw that comparison,
you can kind of understand a little bit more why
you might leave everything to Mary. But I can understand
if you were Jim, why you'd feel like that was
a slap in the face.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Why we definitely feel like that was a slap in
the face.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Yeah, or like it undermined your relationship. Even I can't
imagine what that would feel like. But Jim did go on.
He took the money that Freddy left him. He went
on to move back to Ireland and bought a property there.
So it's not as though he stayed in England and
you know, was destitute by any means. But it's just
a very interesting end to the to the life. And
I guess it was a surprising end.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
And Jim ended up living a very long life. He
died in twenty ten, even though he battled AIDS as well.
It wasn't AIDS that he passed away from an end,
It was lung cancer.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
I hate that we've gotten to the end of this
story and we don't have a happy ending to wrap
it all up into a nice little bow. Freddy had
to live a life that was private, He had to
hide away who he was in many ways, because the
views of society didn't match up to who he was
as a person, or you know, we weren't accepting of
being gay, being bisexual. Our social views at that time
were very rigid. Even though Freddy and Jim lived this
(32:53):
beautiful life together, I think it's really sad that they
weren't able to just live it freely and openly and
authentically for fear of Yeah, and it is a story
of a lot of beautiful love stories in a lot
of different capacities, but at the end it doesn't really
have the happy ending that we're after. That's real life, baby,
(33:15):
That is it. From as Thanks for joining us for
another episode of Hooked, Hitched, and hung Up. This is
a podcast from iHeart Podcast Australia, Dead sit Studios and
the Kiss Network.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Make sure you follow on your podcast app and listen
to any of the previous episodes that you might have missed,
because there are some pretty wild stories out there.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Join us next time for some more breakups and makeups
and some more of the spiciest celebrity relationships of all time.
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