What a fantastic evening shooting Roger Taylor doing what he does best! Performing live. Absolutely brilliant gig! Sadly I couldnât shoot Brian May later as we were only allowed to shoot first four numbers. I was so happy to see all of you at the concert who came to my gallery during the day! What a night!!
Yeah, Iâm on the same page as @just-a-poor-boy-queen. Iâve tried to sympathise with Mary but the more I hear about what sheâs done, the more I find it impossible. I also believe she was unhealthily obsessed with Freddie and definitely clung to him as much as he clung to her. The fact that she admitted that she refused to get married until after he died out of âloyaltyâ just proves it.
Sheâs not evil or anything, and I can appreciate that she was a trustworthy friend to Freddie. But someone can be a good friend to your face and be a terrible person behind the scenes. I know from experience, unfortunately :/
Oh, I'm not saying what she did after he died was fine, don't get me wrong. Like I also said before, I think she had a lot of resentment for his gay friends, for the fact that he was gay, and I think she felt "free at last" of obligations which she had willingly agreed to but resented for a long, long time.
I could also be wrong. It's hard to do anything but speculate as I feel like I really don't know all that much about her and how she 'works', as a person.
Compared to Freddie, that is.
But, you know, each to their own. You know, I hesitate even to judge Paul Prenter very harshly, at times. Because again I don't feel like I really know him or the intricacies of his situation and life as well as I know Freddie's. And that's still not saying what he did wasn't awful, because it was.
I think that people need to acknowledge and realise that Mary was not in charge of who stayed in Garden Lodge and for how long. She was a beneficiary of the estate, not the executor. The executors', Jim Beach and one other, job was to fulfil the will and that's what they did, in a way that was very distressing for Jim, Joe and Feebee. It would also seem that Mary got the dirty work of communicating all of this. Both Jim and Feebee mention times when she suggested they might be able to stay but it didn't prove possible. That makes me wonder if she asked and was told 'No'. The whole thing was not handled with care. Jim is known for being ruthless with business dealings and, I imagine, probably in his grief, that he resorted to this mode.
Mary felt like everyone abandoned her after Freddie died and resented her inheritance (which I doubt she wanted. The house must- have seemed like a mausoleum). The others felt like she cut herself off from them and threw them out. It was just a mess all round. Add to this, that she was 7 months pregnant when Freddie died. Imagine the grief and pain complicating the birth.
Also, as Feebee has said, it became apparent that the 4 of them weren't actually friends with each other so much as mutual friends of Freddie. Poor Jim had thought they were all good friends and that must have been heartbreaking.
I am no apologist for Mary. She has certainly said some very hurtful things about the others and behaved in hurtful ways, but we need to get one thing clear. She did not make the decisions about the hand over of Garden Lodge.
I'll be the first to say I don't actually know half as much about that period than I know about Freddie's younger years. I haven't actually heard the story told like that before, and honestly, I'm just pretty much going to stop talking about what went on with GL after Freddie died because I clearly don't have enough information to have an informed opinion on that. The only thing that's clear is that there was a lot of hurt and difficulties surrounding that.
What I do absolutely believe is that they were all friends with Freddie but none of them were really that close with each other. It makes sense. Freddie gathered the people he wanted close around himself, and they were all quite different people.
Feebee has discussed it at times, saying that they didn't know what was happening at the time, but found out later that it was to do with squatter's rights and the possibility that they could have used that to challenge the will. He has also made the point about Mary being a beneficiary, not the executor.
Being an executor can be really awful, because wills and inheritance upset so many people. My dad's brothers and sister refused to talk to each other for 10 years because of a washing machine.
Yeah, Iâm on the same page as @just-a-poor-boy-queen. Iâve tried to sympathise with Mary but the more I hear about what sheâs done, the more I find it impossible. I also believe she was unhealthily obsessed with Freddie and definitely clung to him as much as he clung to her. The fact that she admitted that she refused to get married until after he died out of âloyaltyâ just proves it.
Sheâs not evil or anything, and I can appreciate that she was a trustworthy friend to Freddie. But someone can be a good friend to your face and be a terrible person behind the scenes. I know from experience, unfortunately :/
Oh, I'm not saying what she did after he died was fine, don't get me wrong. Like I also said before, I think she had a lot of resentment for his gay friends, for the fact that he was gay, and I think she felt "free at last" of obligations which she had willingly agreed to but resented for a long, long time.
I could also be wrong. It's hard to do anything but speculate as I feel like I really don't know all that much about her and how she 'works', as a person.
Compared to Freddie, that is.
But, you know, each to their own. You know, I hesitate even to judge Paul Prenter very harshly, at times. Because again I don't feel like I really know him or the intricacies of his situation and life as well as I know Freddie's. And that's still not saying what he did wasn't awful, because it was.
I think that people need to acknowledge and realise that Mary was not in charge of who stayed in Garden Lodge and for how long. She was a beneficiary of the estate, not the executor. The executors', Jim Beach and one other, job was to fulfil the will and that's what they did, in a way that was very distressing for Jim, Joe and Feebee. It would also seem that Mary got the dirty work of communicating all of this. Both Jim and Feebee mention times when she suggested they might be able to stay but it didn't prove possible. That makes me wonder if she asked and was told 'No'. The whole thing was not handled with care. Jim is known for being ruthless with business dealings and, I imagine, probably in his grief, that he resorted to this mode.
Mary felt like everyone abandoned her after Freddie died and resented her inheritance (which I doubt she wanted. The house must- have seemed like a mausoleum). The others felt like she cut herself off from them and threw them out. It was just a mess all round. Add to this, that she was 7 months pregnant when Freddie died. Imagine the grief and pain complicating the birth.
Also, as Feebee has said, it became apparent that the 4 of them weren't actually friends with each other so much as mutual friends of Freddie. Poor Jim had thought they were all good friends and that must have been heartbreaking.
I am no apologist for Mary. She has certainly said some very hurtful things about the others and behaved in hurtful ways, but we need to get one thing clear. She did not make the decisions about the hand over of Garden Lodge.
Happy 75th birthday, beautiful Freddie. Today, though, I also want to honour Farrokh, who had the vision, courage and determination to become Freddie. So, Happy Birthday Farrokh. I think a little of you always remained.
I think you can get a sense of what it would have been like for 1976 Roger to flirt with you from this. It's the mouth and the eye contact, I think. Now, just reach out to touch my arm Roger. Go on ...
Y'all over here acting like Jim was some kind of saint, but you just don't want to admit the truth - Jim Hutton was a cat enabler. He knew very well that Freddie was addicted to cats, and yet he still shamelessly smuggled them into the house. Any responsible husband would have staged an intervention to prevent Freddie from becoming a full-blown cat lady, but no, he just stood by and let it happen. Cat addiction is no laughing matter and effects over 20% of the population. Cat enablers like Jim Hutton are directly contributing to this epidemic. Phoebe and Joe were equally as guilty. I wouldn't be surprised if all three of them had a secret cat smuggling ring going on.
Remember kids, stay safe and don't do cats.
Smhhhhhhhhh youâre right :/// Weâre enabling problematic behavior by endorsing cat addiction. Jim saw the red flags but fed his addiction, anyway. He smuggled a kitten into the house with his jacket. He lured Freddie into a relationship by sending him a picture of a big tomcat he used to have, triggering his addiction and letting him know he had the goods. Phoebe was a terrible assistant because he enabled his boss and never told him no. Heâd keep providing him with kittens as long as he kept getting a paycheck. Freddie probably fed his addiction by putting his nose into their soft cat bellies and inhaling. Snorting cat-caine.
Weâre laughing. Freddie had six cats and weâre laughing.
One of my followers, who read a book written by Vic Robinson, a former celebrity bodyguard, was so kind as to share all the stories from it which related to Queen and Freddie! (Thank you so much, anon! đ) Vic worked as Freddieâs personal bodyguard during their US tour in the early 80s (I think it was the Hot Space tour '82?). He has some interesting stories to tell.
The stories include, among other things:
a kind-hearted, intelligent, shy Freddie who will, however, punch people in the head if need be
some serious shade thrown at Paul Prenter
Brian, Rog and Deaky taking a limo of strippers back to their hotel
a lot of appreciation for Queen
and Bill Reid: Arsehole Extraordinaire.
But apart from that, Vicâs account of working for Freddie is the tale of a straight guy having his mind blown by the existence of gay people and their lives.
And it is incredibly entertaining!
This is Vic (the dude with arms like tree trunks), just to give you an idea of the man behind these stories.
And here is the only picture I could find of him with Freddie, and Phoebe on the right there.
I am sorry, I couldn't help but take the mickey out of Vic just a bit in this, but in actual fact, I think he sounds like a good guy at the end of the day. He was simply, like most people, the product of the era-typical homophobia he was surrounded by.
So letâs dive in.
Crystal both âwarnsâ and, I suppose, reassures Vic. (Poor, terrified, huge muscle man that he is, praying to God for his safety at the prospect of having to work for a gay man he could easily throw across the room one-handed.)
âChris Taylor let me know Freddie was gay. I hadn't know that - not that it made that much of a difference, but when you're a single man and you're going to take a job with a gay man, I guess mentally there is a little bit of apprehension. I had some concerns at the beginning, but I just prayed to God and left it alone. After a serious talk with Chris about past experiences, because he had been with the band for a while, I didn't see it as a big problem whatsoever.â
Vic meets Freddie, and immediately gives Paul Prenter some serious side-eye.
âI had been given a heads-up by Chris Taylor that there would be three or four people travelling with him. [...] After a couple minutes, three gentlemen walked through the gates, and I finally saw Freddie. The manager of the band Paul Prenter was with him, as was his personal assistant Peter Freestone. They were quite, as I would say, vociferous as they walked out. They were having a lot of fun. I saw Freddie, walked up to him and said, âHow are you doing, Freddie? Iâm Vic.â Immediately, Paul Prenter said âwhereâs the car?â. Paul was probably five three or five four - and that might be pushing it. He wasnât very tall. Freddie pretty much looked like I thought, like a true rock star. He wasnât dressed flamboyantly or anything like that. He said âNice to meet youâ. As we were driving to the hotel, Freddie asked me where I was from and how long Iâd been in the business [...] I felt he respected me, just from how he started talking to me. It definitely didnât take long to realise that Paul Prenter liked to be in control. He wanted to show that he was the so-called man in charge when it came to the band, which didnât bother me [...] I had only been around Paul for teen or fifteen minutes, and I already knew I personally didnât care for him.â
Vicâs first impressions of Queen, in which everyone is really cool, but especially Brian.
âFreddie seemed to be quite smart, pretty low key, and somewhat shy.â
âJohn Deacon was the second band member I met, a really cool guy. One thing that I did notice with Freddie and John was they were very intelligent, definitely musician's musicians. The next person I met was Brian. He just looked like a rock star. He was a very cool brother. [...] He was the glue of the band, in addition to Freddie.â
âRoger Taylor was the last person I met and the one I really hit it off with right away. Everybody was cool. No divas, as you would call them, so far. Everybody seemed to be pretty grounded. I just felt comfortable with the whole situation.â
Vic is very impressed with Queen as a band, and Freddie: great communicator and confident, seasoned performer.
âWhen it was time to go on stage, I had an energy that I'd never had before. The crowd was going crazy, chanting, 'Queen! Queen! Queen!' [...] I knew from looking at the stage and how it was set up that it didn't have all of the so-called bells and whistles of a Rolling Stone stage, but it was quite different in the lighting - it was spectacular and of course, having a grand piano at the front of the stage really made for a different feeling. When Queen took the stage [...] the crowd went absolutely nuts. [...] The other three members [...] went up and took their positions. They started playing, while Freddie was still in the quick change room with me and Peter Freestone, his personal assistant. He turned and gave me a high five; they gave him his microphone, and he pranced out there like he owned the crowd and the stage right off the bat. I had never seen anything like that before [...] Freddie was different. After hearing him hit that first note, I knew he could sing like no one I had ever heard perform before. He was just an incredible singer, and his stage presence was awesome as well. It was a constant learning process for me doing that first show. But it was one that he made very easy for me because he was very good to work with. Right off the bat, there was nothing hard about communicating with him on stage, and it seemed like the more I was around him, the better our communication got.â
Vic goes out with Freddie and his friends for the first time and is SHOOKETH by the sheer level of GAY.
âI went and brought Freddie down. Paul Prenter and Peter Freestone were going with us as well. I wasn't sure at the beginning, but it didn't seem like people were calling each other by their real names. [...] It took me a while to really catch on to it, but I noticed Paul Prenter and Peter Freestone didn't call Freddie by his name all the time. [...] They called Freddie Melissa. [lol, I donât know if this was anonâs auto-correct or if Vic simply wrongly recalls the name Melissa, Melina being a bit rarer.] Freddie called Paul Trixie, and Peter Phoebe.â
âStages was the very first discotheque or club that I went into with Freddie [...] As soon as we walked through the door, I knew this was definitely different for me. Every guy in the club was basically gay. Every woman or lady in the club was gay as well - not that I had a problem with that. My only problem was keeping myself focused on the things that I needed to focus on, namely my boss Freddie Mercury. When we walked through those doors, people flocked to Freddie almost like there were people who were apparently old friends of his. [...] They all went up to the bar for a drink. Freddie chilled for a little bit, just talking to some friends and enjoying the music. [...] Eventually, everybody went out onto the dance floor and started dancing. [...] I was just kind of standing at the bar. [...] It was the first time in my life that I'd had two men standing to my left hugging and kissing and two beautiful women standing to my right hugging and kissing. Here I was, single, standing in between the two pairs, going, WOW.â
âI realized in working for my new boss, I had to do my absolute best not to pass judgement of any kind. I had never worked for anyone gay [...] I knew it was most important for me not to get caught up in prejudging anyone. [...] I treated him with the same respect that I would have wanted to be treated with myself.â
Vic meets more of Freddieâs friends, fans and entourage, and boy, theyâre all really gay too! And Freddie is easily taken advantage of in his desire to show people how much he cares and to make them happyâŠ
âSo many different kinds of people came to see Freddie. Some came dressed as nuns, and they came dressed as drag queens by the thousands. It was just all kinds. The ones who were lucky enough to get a backstage pass or who were just friends of his were able to come back and hang out after the show. They really showed their love for him, and he showed his love for them as well, sometimes almost too much because he let people get away with things. They would get things that I didnât think they needed to have. In one particular case, we had a off day in San Francisco, [...] and I thought we were going to an amusement park. [...] Just getting out of the hotel and getting to where we had to go was a chore, because a lot of Freddieâs friends came too. We ended up having to get a second limo. We ended up at a resort. It was quite a unique resort because all it was, was a lot of gay men around the pool. [...] We spent like eight hours there.
Now I was a straight man around two or three hundred gay guys. There was only one woman on the premises that I saw; she was the bartender and turned out to be a lesbian. This was not the most fun I had on this whole tour. [...] Even though, I loved my boss Freddie, because he was a very lovable and likeable person, I was just getting tired of all of the friends and people who tried to go overboard and take advantage of him by talking him into doing things that he really didnât need to do. And when I say those things, please donât take it the wrong way, because the bottom line of it is we all have friends like that, people who just get spoiled as friends, even if they also have money. They think that everything you have, they should have. Or if youâre having that, they should be having that. They know that youâre going to foot the bill because they know you have a kind heart. In that way, I thought a lot of people tried to take advantage of him.â
But! Freddie also has some really awesome friends - and he sure knows how to take care of himself, and will punch you in the head.
âA lot of Freddie's friends and associates had money. They were soap opera stars, doctors, a lot of them were professors. All different kind of people. They were all nationalities and races - white, black and Hispanic. I thought that was really cool. If you're not a person who's prejudiced you should have friends of all shapes and colors. Being in that situation, being around people that I absolutely had to make sure werenât really trying to get next to my boss in the wrong way, it was tough sometimes. My boss occasionally took chances that he didnât have to take or shouldnât have taken. When we were in these bars [gay bars], I tried to keep away and give him his space as much as possible without being so far away that I could not strike and do whatever I needed to do in case of extreme emergency. Freddie was a person who, believe it or not, could take care of himself. If you got up in his face, he would punch you in the head. For the most part, that was what he had me for. [...] You had to push people away and maybe pull them away sometimes.â
Queen had a gay and a straight hospitality room, and Vic had to work really hard to make absolutely sure people knew he was Definitely Not Gay, no sir, no homo.
"All of the band members would get together in one hospitality room where all of their guests and friends would meet after their show. For Queen, the three band members had their hospitality room and Freddie had another hospitality room a little bit further down the hall for himself and his friends. All of the people in the band's hospitality room were straight. All of the people in Freddie's hospitality room were gay, it seemed. And the interesting part of it was how they came. Some were dressed in drag. Some were dressed like everyday bussiness people, but there was a wide variety of the kind of people who were Freddie's friends or guests. [...] It opened the door for me to learn about something that I really had known nothing about prior to working with Queen on that day. Quite often, it seems when we are not used to certain situations, we automatically pass judgment - for example, when someone is gay. But when you are a straight man, you're used to being around straight men in most instances. I found out I had to carry myself in a certain way early because I didn't want to give the impression in any way, shape, or form that I was gay to anyone. At certain times, friends of Freddie's would approach me with comments, so I wanted it known that I was not gay.â
Itâs okay, Vic. Nobody thought you were gay. *compassionate shoulder pat* Itâs okay, my friend. Ahem, moving on...
Vic is very impressed with the Spartacus guide.
âI noticed that Freddie, Paul Prenter and Peter Freestone were looking at this little black book and were talking about different places in Boston to go - clubs and different restaurants. I asked Paul Prenter, the manager of the band, what the book was that gave them the information. He told me it was like a little black book that had all of the gay clubs, gay restaurants, gay resorts, gay-owned shops, etc. It was like a 'where's this and where's that' kind of book, and it really just showed all of the different places that they could go to and know that they were among their peers. I found that to be very interesting, because I never knew that anything like that existed.â
Vic goes out shopping in New York with Freddie and, wouldnât you believe it, there are a lot of gay people in NYC! Where are all these gay people coming from, like damn!
âGoing out in New York City was quite interesting, because - I didn't know it at the time - New York City had a very large gay population. Freddie was very excited about going shopping and getting out and about to different restaurants owned by friends of his and past acquaintances. We were out all the time while we were there. More and more on a daily basis, not only was it eye-opening, but it was fun to work with him and basically see the whole thing take place. We went to some very unique restaurants and shopping areas. All of the shopping areas that we went to were owned by gay men or women. With my everyday friends, first of all, I never did anything like this [...] I never went shopping per se, other than maybe to go buy a pair of tennis shoes with one of my friends I worked out with [...] I never went shopping per se [...] Freddie and his friends, when they went shopping, they went shopping. We would come back and get in the limo with tons of things that had been purchased [...] It was really cool because they had fun together. They argued, they laughed, and they tried to pick up other gay men. It was just an interesting thing for me [...] It took me a while to get used to it, but I did, as much as I possibly could, I guess.â
Vic goes out clubbing with Freddie and is introduced to ass-less chaps. He sort of almost takes it in his stride at this point.
âFreddie and a couple of his friends wanted to go out. Whenever you are going to go out to a spot, you leave your boss in the limo, especially if it's a place you've never been to. I would go in, kind of check it out, and look for different exits and places to get out. I would maybe go and introduce myself to the owner, tell him that I wanted to bring my boss, so-and-so, in, and they would get us a nice table. It wasn't very often that Freddie needed a table because he liked to move freely about wherever we were. I walked into this particular club and talked to the doorman. He introduced me to the club owner. [...] The first thing that I saw when we got into the club that totally surprised me was a guy dressed in chaps, the motorcycle pants with the butt out. And the butt was out. He was dancing with his partner. I had never seen anything like that before. We all went in, and they had a good time there. That was all that really counted. They were used to that atmosphere. I wasn't really, but it turned out to be one of their favourite spots. [...] Freddie wasn't someone who needed to come into a place and be showcased. He wasn't about standing in one spot and doing autograph sessions and that kind of stuff. [...] Very seldom did I see him do autographs or anything like that. A lot of the people we were around, he just basically talked to like he'd known them for years, even if it was someone he had just met that day.â
An introduction to Bill Reid, Freddieâs jealous, violent, douchebag âmateâ. (I suppose Vic couldnât bring himself to refer to him as Freddieâs boyfriend, that would have been just too gay.)
âSomeone whom I havenât mentioned a whole lot in this part of my book was one of the mates that Freddie had met in New York City on the tour. He had started hanging out with us a little bit more of the time. He used to come and ride on the plane, but that ended pretty quickly because the band members didnât really like Freddieâs mate being on the plane.
We made our way down to our next city, which was Atlanta, Georgia. Now, without a doubt, I had heard a lot about underground Atlanta but I didnât know that underground Atlanta was GAY underground Atlanta. The nightclubs, the restaurants, just everything. More power to them. I like people who are trying to be positive, but smart and surround themselves with people who can elevate their minds. It seemed to me that throughout the tour, since Iâd been on it, one thing that Iâd learned was, most of the gay people that I was around, especially Freddieâs friends, had money. They had businesses. They networked. They helped each other. I thought that was very interesting. We went out to a club in Atlanta. It wasnât too often that Freddieâs mate came with us to a club, but he was in town and we were going out so he came with us.
Freddie came in and saw a group of people he knew, who had met us there because they were friends of his. Freddieâs mate didnât like it. There was a big group of people dancing on the dance floor, having a good time. This guy had gotten a drink and wanted Freddie to dance with him, but Freddie was truing to talk to his friends a little. So he went out to the dance floor and was doing his thing, all of a sudden, something wet passed my face. It was a glass that heâd thrown toward Freddie. Now the number one thing that cannot happen when youâre on the road is for anyone to hurt your boss [...] After talking to Freddie for a couple seconds, I immediately went over and told his mate that couldnât happen again. He continued to tell me what he could and couldnât do so I had to grab him and escort him out. [...] Freddieâs mate did appear to be jealous a lot when he wasnât getting the attention he thought he needed.â
Wait, what was that about the rest of Queen not wanting Bill around very much?
âThe other band members weren't real cool on his mate, it wasn't the first time something like this had happened. [Bill acting crazy while drunk] It was pretty uncomfortable and it was one of the reasons they didn't want his mate on the plane. Freddie and I used to have conversations. [...] I mentioned to him the downfalls of having his mate around but I couldn't tell him what to do, [...] I just tried to do the best to protect him.â
Excuse me, Queen RPF fandom, I would like to request a fic in which Vic tries to talk Freddie into breaking up with Bill. âAll Iâm sayinâ is heâs not acting in a good way, boss. Not around you, not around nobody. Now far be it from me to tell any man what to do, it ainât my personal business, I know. But that mutha- mate of yours-â
Another instance when Bill proved to be an absolute arsehole and things got pretty scary.
âAfter the show, we went out, which was nothing unusual. This was one of the nights we came back with a lot more people than we had left the hotel with, as far as friends, the manager of the band, and the personal assistant. We came back with three cabs and a limo following us; the limo was packed. I even had people sitting on my lap. [...] When he wanted his friends in the limo, they got the limo. [...] I could keep an eye on him, so we were all good. We got back to the hotel, and after about an hour, I decided to retire and go to my room. They were having a party. Freddie's mate was there, and sometimes when his mate had a few too many drinks, the jealousy that he carried all the time got worse. His mate decided to create a situation with another one of his friends, and it got really crazy, so people started leaving. Now, it was like 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning when I got a telephone call. I was butt-ass naked in my room, minding my own business asleep. I got a call from Freddie. 'Get to my room as fast as possible'. I was thinking somebody was trying to kidnap him or something really bad was happening. I got there, and his mate was throwing things and acting really crazy and stupid like a drunken person would. [...] I ran through the hallway with nothing but a towel wrapped around me because it was so much of an emergency, I didn't think I had time to put clothes on. It was another situation where I had to escort his mate out of the room and away from him, because he wanted his mate gone. [...] There were only a few people left because hotel security had also come up to the room. The next day, the damage was fully visible. Freddie's room had a very nice mural on the wall. His mate had thrown a champagne bottle through it and screwed up the whole thing. [...] I was just glad that it wasn't worse.â
Once sort of over the shock of All The Gay, Vic is also very much in awe of Freddieâs talent.
âMore and more I worked for Queen and got an opportunity to be around Freddie Mercury, it just became an extraordinary thing for me. I didn't know it prior to finishing the tour, but it ended up being, musically, the best tour that I had ever been on. I mean, the Rolling Stones tour was awesome, but the Queen tour was so incredible theatrically, music-wise, and vocally, and the light show was second to none. It was like some kind of [...] I don't even have the right words for it. All I can tell you is, if you ever had a chance to see a Queen show back in the day, then you had an opportunity to see something very special, because Freddie Mercury was an incredible vocalist and an incredible showman [...] If there are five people who can sing and perform better than Freddie Mercury could, show them to me. [...] If there's even one, I'd be surprised, because when it came to singing, performing, and theatrics [...] he was just incredible.â
Vic visits his home turf with Queen and Freddie and realises there have been gay people where he grew up all this time!
âGoing into Chicago was quite an experience too, mainly because of the fact that Chicago was the place where I was born and raised. [...] I had an opportunity to see a lot of different people. I never knew, I absolutely never knew, the population of gay people was that large there in Chicago either. It just seemed like every city that we went to, we found more and more places that I never even knew existed. I guess the fact that it wasn't my lifestyle had something to do with it. As I've said before in this book, it was just a constant learning experience. [...] I thought that the Chicago shows were a couple of the bests shows that Queen did. Even though every Queen show was different, one thing I can say about them is that they were always consistent in how they performed. But Chicago stood out.â
Freddie went out A Lot. (No surprise there.)
âA lot of times when you're on tour, your ass doesn't go out every night, but Freddie went out every night. It was not a situation where we sat still after a show. If we weren't travelling immediately afterward on the private jet, then we were going out and about. A lot of time, we'd go straight out to the limo and hit a club immediately before going back to the hotel. When we did go back to the hotel, most of the time it was back with a couple of his friends or the manager of the band and his personal assistant, who oftentimes came out and about to have fun with us. By the end of the night, it would be just me and him. They would have left.â
Vic is STILL surprised that gay culture exists in places he thought he knew!
âTo be out and about with a band like Queen was phenomenal each and every night, but I tell you what, coming home to Denver, the place where I lived at that time was very spectacular for me. I went out and about in Denver with Freddie. We went to a couple of different spots; I tell you what, we went to a male impersonator show and a drag queen show. I never even knew that those kinds of things existed in Denver.â
But, thankfully, at long last he also gets to go to a strip club with Roger, Brian and John and gets a day off from all the gayness. Good for him.
âJust like pretty munch any place else, it was a new learning experience as far as who might be there and who might not be there when it came to how many of our spectators were gay or not gay. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't about just focusing on who was or wasn't gay. My boss was gay. [Really? Iâm not sure youâve mentioned that enough, Vic.] I spent all of my time around the gay people out and about on the tour. I spent very little time with the other members of the band, which wasn't a bad thing, but I can tell you that in Dallas, Texas, Freddie needed a chill day. He did not go out. He stayed in his room pretty much the whole time. [...] The rest of the members of the band were going to go out and go to a club [...] They were going to go to out to a strip club called Babydolls. [...] I had become used to going out and seeing men all the time and being with men, so it was a treat. So I said, 'Okay, I'm going to hang out with you guys'. So we went to this club. Everybody immediately started catering to the band members once they found out who they were. Not that the band members were looking for that, but we definitely got a lot more attention than a lot of the other so-called paying customers [...] That was one of my first real treats being out on the Queen tour, because they had some honeys in there. They really had some beautiful women dancing in that place. When we left there, there were two cabs and one limo full of women. We went back to the Antelope Hotel, where we were staying, and the party was taken back there, which was very unusual. All in fun. People had a damn good time. It was like an off day for me.â
Although sometimes the gay nightlife is also pretty damn impressive.
âAnother spectacular memory I have [...] When I went out with my boss and a couple of his friends. We went into this club, and there was a drag queen show. I saw the most amazing artist. We went to a Sylvester show. It was incredible. [...] For anyone who doesn't know who Sylvester was, he was born a man and decided to be a drag queen. He was a phenomenal musician and one of Freddie's friends, as well. [...] I'll never foget that either.â
Vic was excited to meet the Jacksons, and Freddie and MJ appeared to be great friends and excited to see each other.
âI had no idea, but after the show, I found out the Jacksons were there. That was unbelievable - to have Marlon, Randy, and Jermaine there. It was wonderful to be able to see artists coming out to visit at a Queen tour. [...] I was very humbled to see them. They were very down-to-earth. They came backstage and visited with the band members and hung out for a little bit."
"The next night when we played, Michael Jackson came to visit with Freddie. I had no idea that Freddie and Michael had been great friends for a long time. Michael, along with one of his personal assistants, came into the dressing room. He and Freddie were both extremely excited to see each other. As a matter of fact, afterward, we went back to the Beverly Hills Hotel and had a dinner. It's always interesting to see people in the same business share ideas and just talk about everyday things, and that's what they did. [...] Freddie had mentioned to me before that he was a friend of his. [...] Just seeing Michael show up was the ultimate. [...] I was extremely thankful that, once again, I had been given an opportunity to see something that I had never seen before.â
And finally:
âI appreciated the whole organization of Queen, because, by far, it was very organized. People were extremely friendly. If there's anything that I wish I would have had more of an opportunity to do, it would have been to spend a lot more time with the other band members: John Deacon, Brian May and Roger Taylor. They were all cool people. I only had the opportunity to spend time with them one night, and that was at the Babydolls nightclub when we were in Dallas. [...] They always talked with such positivity. Just the knowledge that they had, I could tell they were all well-educated people. That was the ultimate highlight of my security career.â
Anon, thank you once again so much for sharing all this! đ What an incredibly interesting look at Freddie and Queen, and that time in their lives, from the sidelines. So much great stuff here.
Now, in a fanfic universe, all this exposure to 'the gays' would have led Vic to have a revelation about himself and he would have fallen head over heels in love with ... Phoebe!
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