Hollywood always spices things up when movies are adapted from real life, but in the case
of Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, it wasn't really necessary.
Queen's Freddie Mercury was quite a character and lived hard.
Here are some of the times the Bohemian Rhapsody movie lied to you.
Getting the band together
In reality, Queen had a much slower evolution than the one portrayed in the film.
Mercury already knew Brian May and Roger Taylor, who were in the band Smile, but he was singing
with other groups.
According to Queen Vault, the first time Queen members were on stage together was in 1969,
when May and Taylor joined Mercury on stage for an encore at one of his shows.
By the time Smile's bass player decided to quit, May, Taylor and Mercury were sharing
an apartment, so they were hardly strangers, as Rolling Stone reported.
It's true that the band member's departure gave Mercury the "in" he needed to join the
group, but he was already a part of May and Taylor's musical circle and had been for some
time.
Marriage proposal
A lot of what the film says about Mercury's relationship with Mary Austin is true.
He did spend many years in a heterosexual relationship, and the two of them were actually
engaged to be married.
But according to Vanity Fair, the proposal didn't go down like it was depicted on the
big screen, and the ring wasn't anything big or gaudy.
In a 2013 interview, Austin described the proposal as a lot more light-hearted, saying,
"He gave me a big box on Christmas Day.
Inside was another box, then another and so it went on.
It was like one of his playful games.
Eventually, I found a lovely jade ring inside the last small box."
Austin described herself as being completely shocked, and that she immediately whispered
the words "Yes, I will."
Ray's rejection
One of the more entertaining scenes in the film is the meeting between Queen and Ray
Foster, the executive who's too short-sighted to see that "Bohemian Rhapsody" is a masterpiece.
Foster is played by Mike Meyers, and the whole scene is really just a nod to the famous moment
in the Wayne's World movie, in which Meyers and his head-banging buddies are rocking out
in a car to the legendary anthem.
"Well that's the kind of song teenagers can crank up the volume in their cars and bang
their heads to.
Bohemian Rhapsody will never be that song."
It turns out, Ray Foster wasn't even a real person.
According to Rolling Stone, he's loosely based on an EMI chief who did think "Bohemian Rhapsody"
was too long.
But the rest of the scene — and the character — are pure fiction.
"His name is Ray Foster he’s actually made up he’s a composite of many many EMI people."
Breaking up the band
In Bohemian Rhapsody, Mercury tells his bandmates that he wants to leave the band to work on
a solo project.
His bandmates are devastated and betrayed, and they all part on very bad terms.
But according to Ultimate Classic Rock, while the band did indeed take a break after the
1982 release of their album Hot Space, it wasn't actually a "break up," and everyone
was pretty much on board with the idea.
Also, May and Taylor were both already working on solo records of their own.
In the Mercury biography A Kind of Magic, Taylor said he didn't think Mercury even wanted
to be doing a solo album.
"It's just that he got an awful lot of money from CBS.
When it came down to actually doing a solo album, he did sort of miss us.
He used to ring me up, and I'd have to fly to Munich to do his background vocals."
Live Aid delay
In the film, the long delay before Live Aid was because of the band's break-up — but
again, real-life Queen never actually broke up.
In fact, they'd just returned from a world tour two months earlier.
According to Slate, the real reason for the band's late entry into Live Aid was because
the show's organizer wasn't sure he wanted them there.
At the time, they were kind of being collectively shunned by the rock and roll community for
a series of strange touring decisions.
Then, when the Live Aid invitation finally did come, the band hesitated because they
didn't like playing in daylight, and they weren't sure the sound at the event would
be up to their standards.
Fortunately for rock and roll history, Queen finally agreed, and turned out what is widely
believed to be one of the greatest musical performances of all time.
Freddie's diagnosis timing
In what is probably the biggest liberty that the filmmakers took, we see Mercury's health
start to deteriorate as he's working on his solo album, not long before the epic Live
Aid performance.
Just before the show, Mercury tells his band mates that he has AIDS, and they rally around
him in support.
But according to Ultimate Classic Rock, the film got the dates all wrong — by most accounts,
Mercury wasn't diagnosed until 1987, two years after Live Aid.
Of all the film's fictions, critics have probably been most up in arms about this one, writing
that it was an insult to Mercury to suggest that having AIDS somehow had something to
do with his epic performance at Live Aid.
It's clear, though, that filmmakers didn't want Bohemian Rhapsody to be the tragic story
of a man in decline, but rather the uplifting story of a man who became a superstar.