Freddie Mercury's OUTRAGEOUS night in New York – You WON'T believe what he did in public

Freddie loved to make everybody laugh – but he also loved to make himself laugh. In New York and Berlin, he found a freedom and release he could not have at home in the UK. Peter Freestone went everywhere with the Queen star as his personal, live-in PA and close friend for the last 12 years of his life. Peter sat down with Express Online for an exclusive chat about the incredible life of the music legend and the new boxset Never Boring, which collects all of Freddie’s solo music with rare and unseen photos, interviews and personal thoughts. 

Peter says: “There was moment in New York. We went to a big warehouse bar. We were with the construction worker from The Village People, David Hodo.

“They only served beer in tins and drinks in plastic cups and there was a huge chicken wire bin where everybody threw the empties.

“I went to the toilet and told Freddie not to move and I’d be right back. But when I came back I could hear people cheering. David came running up to me in a panic, saying, ‘You have to help me with Freddie!’

“Someone had given Freddie an enormous vodka tonic and he was out of his brain.”

Freddie Mercury exclusive: ‘Trust was everything to Freddie. Only two people ever really hurt him.’

“We went around to where all the noise was and there was a crowd watching Freddie jumping up and down in the bin laughing and screaming,’I’m trash, I’m trash.’

“We had to lift him out. Everyone knew who he was but nobody cared because he was one of them.

“He wasn’t showing off. He wasn’t being a star. He was being himself. People loved him for it.

“It was very different in London where he was so famous he would be mobbed, he had to take a car anywhere, but it was different in New York. He loved that freedom.”

Even more wonderful is Peter’s story about what Freddie used to do – or not do – in the queue for a club.

Peter says: “Freddie would never go to the front of the queue and do the whole, ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ routine.

“He would always stay in the queue with his friends. He wanted to be normal with them. Trust and friendship was so important to him.

“I’m sure his friends actually would have absolutely loved to have swept past the queue but he didn’t want special treatment. He loved just hanging out, being himself. He wanted to share their world not pull them into his.”

Just when you think you can’t love Freddie any more…

The new Freddie Mercury solo boxset Never Boring is out now.