Freddie Mercury and HIV

[JamieCannister]

I'm in a hospital waiting room, waiting for a family member. Two men are talking, I'm guessing a patient and his friend (partner?) They are both about 75, and whilst my Gaydar not hardly going off like crazy, I suspect that they might be gay and maybe a couple.

Freddie Mercury came up, and one of them basically said something along the lines of "he knew he had AIDS and knowingly has sex with lots of other men without telling them. He was a bit of an arsehole really but as a singer he's one of my absolute favourites".

Before I ask anything, I'm going to say that I'm not about to judge Freddie Mercury against 2025 standards - there was so much ignorance back then, both ignorance of the disease and ignorance that lead to huge prejudice.

But I am curious... is there any evidence (widely reported) or rumours (perhaps in the gay community) that Freddie Mercury knowingly had risky sex after knowing he was HIV+?

As an aside I had a gay friend (now deceased) who knew Freddie, not well, and he always said "she was such a bitch" whilst telling stories none of which suggested anything at all bad about Mercury!

Absolutely love Freddie!! What a loss to the music world.

I think people took objection to the fact that Freddie only publicly announced he had AIDS the day before his death, but from memory, Jim Hutton said in his book that Freddie no longer wanted to have unprotected sex with him after he found out he was HIV positive (although it was too late and he was already infected).

I can imagine the stigma was so massive that if he did, he wouldn't have been the only one. The treatment and way society sees the illness is a million miles away from in the 80s.

Who knows - but at the time anyone having unprotected sex with a gay man would know the likely risks, whether either of them was diagnosed or not.

I have heard that rumour before but if you look at the timeline it’s unlikely he did it knowingly.

he was diagnosed in 1987, he was with Jim Hutton by then and I do think he was generally a loyal guy.

The knowledge that it was transmitted through mix of bodily fluids was discovered early 80s but not really widely known until mid to late 80s and as a pp said the stigma was huge. He was known to be promiscuous before meeting Jim mid 80s. the ‘don’t die of ignorance’ leaflets were sent in 87 about the same time we were all getting lectures at school about it.

So whilst there is no doubt he caught it as a result of his lifestyle and invariably passed it along. I don’t think anyone can retrospectively judge him for doing it knowingly.

I watched a brief interview with Freddie from the 80s, and it was possibly one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard in my life.

He was talking about the Sex Pistols, and he said that Sid Vicious didn’t like him, because Freddie had called him Simon Ferocious.

I have heard that rumour before but if you look at the timeline it’s unlikely he did it knowingly.

I agree. I think there probably were quite a few who took risks in the early-mid-'80s, knowing there was a risk without being certain, because they were untested, and it wasn't clear how it was transmitted to start with. We can't know if Freddie was one of them then, but he would hardly have been alone if so.

I understood it that Freddie knew he was ill, and this was at a time when HIV/AIDS was known about and considered to be a death sentence, but he put off seeking a diagnosis and continued to maintain his risky sex lifestyle. However, I wasn’t there and have no idea.

I remember his announcement the day before he died and that it wasn’t considered a surprise to anyone because rumours had been in place for a long time.

Once he hit fame he indulged as much as he could. Different times and no one knew what was happening. Maybe people should have practiced restraint but being a rich gay man allowed hedonism to the max. Paul Gambaccini talked about it as he might have had a night out with him. Wrong place, right time for Freddie. Legend! He lived life to the full and when ill l he owned it. Much missed by us all.

In the documentaries on him people talk about a room with a key in one of the clubs and basically everyone who had a key to that died of AIDS. So on that level there must have been an awareness about it and some knowingly spreading it.