Peter Freestone became Freddie’s PA in 1979 when he was plucked from the Royal Ballet wardrobe department. He spent the last 12 years of Freddie’s life living with him at the One Garden Lodge mansion and was there in his final hours. In an exclusive interview with Express Online, he tells us about his extraordinary times with Freddie – and the pain and fear his failing health caused him. But not in the way you expect.
Peter says: “He thought he was sick in 1986 and it was confirmed in 1987. He didn’t get depressed. He wasn’t afraid. It was a fact he was going to die.
“In those days there was absolutely nothing could change that. So he got on with his music.”
However, it was a different matter when it came to revealing the news to his friends, family and the wider world. Rumours were rife, especially after his ex-manager Paul Prenter sold a story in 1987 revealing two of Freddie’s lovers had died of AIDS the year before. Rumours were rife Freddie might be sick too.
In response, Freddie turned inwards and shut many people out.
Another close friend, West End musicals star Peter Straker, later revealed he was cut out of Freddie’s life for raising the subject after two decades of friendship.
“We had lunch and he was quite blotchy and he had make-up on, and we went upstairs and we were sitting down watching telly on his bed and I said to him, ‘Have you got AIDS?’ and he said, ‘No, I haven’t got AIDS!’
And I said, ‘If there’s anything wrong with you, I’m always here for you,’ and we parted that evening. That was the last time I saw him.”
Freddie died a year later on November 24, 1991.
As the rumours built in the later 1980s, another friend, presenter Paul Gambuccini, remembers: “Freddie was still being seen by his inner circle, but people on the periphery, like myself, were jettisoned as he concentrated on the hardcore.”
The inner circle were ex-girlfriend Mary Austin, boyfriend Jim Hutton, Peter Freestone and another live-in ex, Joe Facinelli.
Two years after his diagnosis, Freddie brought his Queen bandmates into that small trusted group, during an “emotional” dinner in Montreux in May 1989.
Taylor later said: “We knew he was terribly ill; it was really only a confirmation of what we’d guessed.”
May added: “He knew that if he did announce it his life would become a circus and he would be prevented from going about his business, which was making music. He wanted it to be business as usual until the end.”
Freddie wanted to be seen through his music. He lived for his music. In his final months, he recorded as much material as his failing health would allow at the studios in Montreux, before returning to his London home.
Only at the very end was he prepared to let his status define him, a little, when he released a public statement on Friday, November 22.
Peter says: “I have never seen him so relaxed because the secret was out. There was nothing to hide or to worry about. So he could prepare himself. He was at peace.”
And, in the end, of course, it was his extraordinary music and remarkable spirit that lives on, as great and glorious today as it ever was.
Peter is promoting the official new box set Never Boring, which collects all of Freddie’s solo works, as well as rare and unseen photos, sketches, notes and thoughts. Out now.