Thirty years after his death, this podcast reconstructs the life of rock singer Freddie Mercury. The Last Days of… Freddie Mercury begins when the flamboyant Queen frontman is told that he is ill, and ends when he dies of AIDS on November 24, 1991. The series is full of archive footage, music and interview clips from Mercury. An entire episode is devoted to dissecting the song “Bohemian Rhapsody” (“Anatomy of a Classic”). In addition, attention is paid to the youth of Farrokh Bulsara (as he was actually called) in Zanzibar and India, his coming-out, and his wild years in the gay scene. Peter Freestone also speaks, who as a personal assistant experienced up close how Mercury was secretly fighting AIDS.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC Handelsblad on 22 January 2022
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of January 22, 2022