In the new BBC documentary “Freddie Mercury: A Life in Ten Pictures”, David Wigg – former editor at the British tabloid “Daily Express” and close confidant of Freddie Mercury – reveals why the musician only discovered he had AIDS the day before his death announced on November 24, 1991. According to him, Mercury had hoped for a cure until the end.
“Freddie Mercury: A Life in Ten Pictures” tells the impressive life story of the legendary Queen singer, which tragically ended in 1991 as a result of years of AIDS. The film also addresses how aggressively the media speculated about Mercury’s sexuality at the time, while his friends ensured a dignified and protected dying process. This also meant that the musician’s inner circle denied having AIDS for years. It was later revealed that Freddie Mercury had already found out about the diagnosis in 1987.
Wigg had known about AIDS since 1987
As David Wigg reveals in the film, he conducted an exclusive interview with the musician at Mercury’s birthday party in Ibiza that same year. “I noticed that he had lost weight and had a mark on his cheek that appeared to be one of those marks (Kaposi’s sarcoma) that you can get when you have HIV.”
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Mercury also confirmed in the recording made at the time that he was HIV-positive and said: “I almost became a nun. I thought sex was very important to me and I lived for sex and now I’ve gone completely the other way. It scared me to death. I stopped having sex.” Wigg also reports in the documentary that Freddie Mercury specifically asked him not to mention this detail in his lyrics during the conversation.
Mercury hoped for a cure until the end
The reason for this was not only the social stigma that weighs on those suffering from AIDS. “The secret had to be kept because he was hoping that there might still be some sort of cure or that the medication he was taking for this illness would help him get through it,” Wigg said. In 1996, just five years after Mercury’s death, the breakthrough in HIV therapy finally followed. With the help of medication, HIV-positive people have since been able to live with the virus. However, the virus is still not curable to this day.