Freddie Mercury and Elton John had a very close friendship and the Rocketman singer was one of a few who saw the late star in his final days battling AIDS.
In his autobiography Me, Sir Elton described the devastation of seeing his dear friend dying.
He spoke of visiting the Queen singer a lot during this period in 1991 but couldn’t stay much longer than an hour as “it was too upsetting”.
Despite everything Freddie was going through, Sir Elton recalled how the Queen singer still had the strength to entertain his guests at Garden Lodge.
He remembered him being too frail to leave his bed, losing his eyesight and how his body was covered in Kaposi’s sarcoma lesions. Nevertheless, he was still very much Freddie “gossiping away” and being “completely outrageous”.
Sir Elton remembered Freddie saying things like: “Have you heard Mrs Bowie’s new record, dear? What does she think she’s doing?” The Rocketman legend couldn’t work out if the Queen singer knew he was so close to death or was just tenaciously getting on with what life he had left of his 45 years.
Freddie also spent his final days purchasing sweet Christmas presents with notes to be delivered after he died, a surprise that left Sir Elton in tears. He was sent a painting by Henry Scott Tuke, one of his favourite artists, that arrived on Christmas Day while he was still grieving. The artwork had been wrapped in a pillowcase with a touching note referencing his and Freddie’s affectionate drag nicknames for each other. It read: “Dear Sharon, I thought you’d like this. Love, Melina. Happy Christmas.”
Sir Elton recalled: “I was overcome, 44 years old at the time, crying like a child. Here was this beautiful man, dying from AIDS, and in his final days, he had somehow managed to find me a lovely Christmas present. As sad as that moment was, it’s often the one I think about when I remember Freddie, because it captures the character of the man. In death, he reminded me of what made him so special in life.”
Freddie Mercury’s Christmas Story is on Channel 5 at 10pm this evening.