Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody did plenty of playing with the truth, but the movie's
fabrications are only half as bad as the things it totally left out.
Here's how Bohemian Rhapsody ignored the true story of Queen.
That scene where Freddie Mercury meets his future bandmates and wows them with his singing
voice is good for a meet-cute, but that's not really how it all went down.
The movie leaves out the fact that Freddie Mercury, Brian May, and Roger Taylor actually
knew each other before they were all a band together.
In real life, Mercury was also friends with Tim Staffell, the dude who quits the band
in a huff in Bohemian Rhapsody.
The truth is, there was no ugly incident preceding Staffell's departure.
Staffel himself wrote in Esquire:
In fact, these guys were all part of a close-knit group of musicians who were constantly joining
and quitting each other's bands.
Staffell wrote:
Eventually, they hit on just the right combo, and the rest is history, just not quite as
Bohemian Rhapsody tells it.
Bohemian Rhapsody totally skims over the fact that Queen went through three other bassists
before John Deacon finally joined the band.
In the film, Deacon joins Queen almost immediately after Mercury does, but in reality it took
a lot longer than that.
According to a 1996 profile of Deacon in Bassist & Bass Techniques magazine, Deacon hit it
off with the band partly thanks to his quiet demeanor and less-than-flamboyant playing
style.
Queen's previous bass players were reportedly too showy in their performance styles, drawing
attention away from the other band members, the opposite of what they wanted in a bassist.
But the eventual union between Queen and Deacon still wasn't love at first sight.
Deacon saw Queen perform in October 1970, and reportedly did not find them to be that
interesting of a band.
But then in early 1971 a mutual friend formally introduced Deacon to May and Taylor, and for
some reason Deacon had a change of heart.
Once he joined up with the group, Deacon became known as the yin to the others' yang.
Roger Taylor would later tell the Daily Mail:
"Cheers."
In the film, Queen sells their touring van so they can afford to make their first album.
Shortly after that, they meet their new manager, John Reid, and everything suddenly falls into
place.
But the film skipped over a ton of drama that happened before they got to that point.
In real life, the band didn't sell a van…they sold their souls.
Well, kind of.
Queen's first manager wasn't John Reid, but a man called Norman Sheffield, co-owner of
Trident Studios.
According to The Guardian, after Queen's album Sheer Heart Attack made it to number two,
the band was left wondering why they weren't rolling in cash.
As it turns out, it was because they'd signed a somewhat predatory contract with Trident,
which basically said Queen would make the albums and Trident would sell them to EMI,
meaning there wouldn't be enough money left over for the band to buy a new set of drumsticks,
much less anything else.
The band was so angry about the arrangement that they wrote a super-unflattering ode to
Sheffield called "Death on Two Legs (Dedicated to…)."
That song was so harsh that Brian May even later admitted he felt bad singing it.
It called Sheffield, among other things, "a sewer rat decaying in a cesspool of pride,"
and angered the band's former manager so much that he decided to sue Queen and EMI for defamation
of character.
Paul Prenter is the undisputed villain of Bohemian Rhapsody, he keeps Mercury locked
away in his own mansion, answers all of his calls for him, shuns all of his friends, and
is implied to be the reason why Mercury contracted HIV.
But the extent of the real Paul Prenter’s villainy is debatable.
It is true that he sold Mercury out to the media in 1987, but the idea that Mercury was
isolated and shut away by Prenter is almost totally fictional.
In reality, Mercury definitely didn't spend all his time in his home waiting for Prenter
to bring the party to him.
He had a whole entourage of people, and spent plenty of time with them at nightclubs and
parties.
In those days, his entourage included not just Paul Prenter, but the likes of actor
Peter Straker, Elton John, and Princess Diana.
The movie doesn't show any of that, though, because it would have jumbled the narrative
and turned Prenter into a more watered-down villain.
And at some point in every film, you've gotta have somebody to hate.
"Bohemian Rhapsody," the song, not the movie, was Queen's crowning achievement.
Sure, they did a lot of great stuff afterward, but nothing would ever quite match the epic
scale of that six-minute, operatic rock suite that gave the film its title.
And like many great works of art, "Bohemian Rhapsody" didn't really come together over
the course of a few days.
In the film, we see Mercury tapping out the first notes on his piano, but we don't see
any of the flashes of inspiration that came before all that.
According to Rock Music Revival, Mercury started writing "Bohemian Rhapsody" in college.
The famous opening words, "Mama, just killed a man" were the first to come to mind, and
led Mercury to think of it under the temporary title of "The Cowboy Song."
The band started working on the song together in 1975.
The operatic sessions took 70 hours to record and happened not just in that one studio in
the muddy middle of nowhere, but in five different studios, and that was just for the vocals.
One thing the movie did portray correctly was the song's reception, and many of Queen's
contemporaries reacted exactly the way Mike Meyers' fictional character did.
"Mark these words, if they're not careful, by the end of the year, no one will know the
name 'Queen.'"
But Queen wouldn't back down, the song remained uncut, and music history was made.
In the movie, Mary Austin insists to Mercury that he's gay, and from that point onwards
the movie continues by portraying Mercury as a man who is only interested in men.
While this may have simplified the narrative a bit, it was far from the whole story.
In reality, Mercury was a lot more complicated than that.
The truth is that he didn't just go on to have relationships with men alone, but also
with women, and the film excluded all of the latter.
According to Biography, Mercury had a number of relationships with men, including Jim Hutton,
who does actually have a part in Bohemian Rhapsody.
During the 1980s, however, he also had a relationship with German actress Barbara Valentin.
The two met in Munich and even shared an apartment, although, to be fair, she would later describe
him as, quote, "mostly gay."
Of course, her presence in the film would have complicated the more simplistic narrative
the filmmakers had in mind, so instead of telling Mercury’s story in all its romantically
complex glory, they opted to let viewers believe that Mercury was strictly gay.
In Bohemian Rhapsody, Freddie Mercury is depicted as focusing on a single musical pursuit, Queen,
with a short side track for some solo stuff.
In reality, however, Mercury collaborated with many other artists and musicians, including
a famous opera singer named Montserrat Caballe.
Mercury met Caballe in 1987, and their creative union produced one of the world's most influential
marriages of classical and contemporary music: the anthem "Barcelona."
That's probably not especially shocking, though, since even Queen newcomers will know about
Mercury's fondness for opera, it's a huge part of the "Bohemian Rhapsody" song, after
all.
What might surprise even Queen fans, however, is that Mercury also performed with the Royal
Ballet, though he did require a little convincing before he agreed to take part.
After initially thinking they must have been mad to consider him, Mercury was eventually
convinced to perform after speaking with the head of EMI, who was also chairman of the
Royal Ballet's board of governors.
You don't become a ballet dancer overnight, though, and Mercury later recalled his punishing
practice sessions in the London Evening News.
He said of his training:
Mercury made his ballet debut in October 1979 in front of an audience of 2,500 theater patrons.
He told the London Evening News:
It's not just his side projects outside of the arena rock realm that Bohemian Rhapsody
leaves out.
The movie also doesn't really touch on any of Mercury's many musical collaborations with
artists in the rock genre or the friendships he forged with some of the greatest musicians
of his time.
You probably already know that he was acquainted with David Bowie, if only because of "Under
Pressure,” Queen’s iconic collaborative song with the Thin White Duke.
But they didn’t just meet as fellow rock stars.
Mercury's relationship with Bowie went all the way back to his college years, when Bowie
played a gig at Mercury's university, and Mercury helped him push a bunch of desks together
to make a stage.
Mercury recorded with other big names, too, including Michael Jackson.
In 1983, the pair worked together on the songs "There Must be More to Life than this," "State
of Shock," and "Victory," but the songs were never released.
Why?
Because of a llama.
Yes, the recording sessions were interrupted by Jackson's pet llama, and Mercury couldn't
take it, finally calling manager Jim Beach and begging to be rescued.
He told Beach:
Freddie Mercury's decline was slow and quiet.
Practically none of it is depicted in Bohemian Rhapsody, because producers decided to give
the film a triumphant ending rather than a tragic one.
In real life, Mercury's AIDS diagnosis didn't actually come until two years after the iconic
Live Aid performance, and he lived for another four years after that.
So while the movie’s ending may feel inspiring, it’s also one of the movie’s most misleading
distortions, potentially affecting how audiences view the legendary real-life concert.
Like many of the movie’s distortions, it’s based on a kernel of truth.
Years after the Live Aid performance, when Queen made an appearance at the 1990 Brit
Awards, Mercury was gaunt and pale, and said little to the audience.
Outside of the public eye, however, Mercury kept on working.
Brian May later explained to The Telegraph:
According to The Telegraph, Mercury kept recording until he could no longer do it, his last session
was in May 1991, and the last song he recorded was Made in Heaven’s "Mother Love," recorded
between the 13th and the 16th of that month.
But at that point in his life, he was very sick.
May explained:
Mercury died in November of that same year, and Brian May sang the last verse of "Mother
Love."
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Grunge videos about your favorite movies are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.