Freddie knew he had HIV in 1984?

Oops ...

https://grammargoddess.com/believe-it-or-not-apostrophes-3/

raucousmonster wrote:

I also remember reading that a fan met Freddie at the I Want to Break Free shoot where Freddie complained of being tired all the time


You got me interested! Where did you read about that, d'ya still have source or link on this? If true, it may have a great contribution to calculation on when Freddie's got the full blown AIDS.

Wish I could remember the source though I think it was none other than Jim Jenkins who was the fan in question. I'm sure a robust Google would find the article.

In terms of an Aids timeline I always felt Freddie picked up the disease in New York in thecesrly 80s. However Tony Gaston died years before Freddie (1986) iirc so he might well have had the virus in 1979 when he and Freddie hooked up. Not saying Tony was the one who infected Freddie necessarily because it could have been someone even before this. But if Tony does only 7 years after he and Freddie hook up your have to say there's a fair chance he had the virus or that the virus was in Brighton/the UK at that time when Freddie was at full throttle.

It's not even close Halloween yet the ghouls are out in force ...

Sounds like the movie is going to adjust things to happen about a year earlier.
Probably because it ends at Live aid and they want an Oscar scene.

Why do people still obsess on when Freddie got AIDS? People are already complaining that his AIDS diagnoses won't be included in the movie ffs.

As far as I know this has been discussed over and over.

Freddie found out he had HIV/AIDS in 1987. Several sources confirmed this.

In the years before 1987, he must have been very worried and uncertain about his future. AIDS spread fast in the gay community and some of Freddie's friends and past lovers got sick and/or passed away.
As a result, Freddie moved back to London and changed his lifestyle in 1985. Unfortunately it was already too late.
He might very well have had some smaller fysical problems before 1987 because of HIV/AIDS, but tests were still unreliable back then.

Seems as if Jim and Marys descriptions of his death are totally different... Sorry so late to this convo

Nellie, Mary wasn't even there when he died, so why would she have an account?

I'm not going to claim to personally know Freddie or Barbara or Jim or Mary or Nicolai or anyone else mentioned or involved. My guess as to when he first either knew he had HIV or at least suspected it would be whatever year it was that he didn't want Barbara to come near him when he cut himself and bled. If he didn't know for sure at that time, it only makes sense that he suspected it because why else wouldn't he want her to get near his blood? I would not sink in any way that Jim was the one who gave it to him. I think he had it long before he met Jim. As for those who are saying he couldn't have had it in 1984 or 1985 because he looked at his most fit during that time, including at Live Aid, that wouldn't matter. HIV and AIDS has an incubation time of approximately 10 years. So if he was diagnosed let's just say in 1987 with full-blown AIDS, she most likely had it since the late 70s, maybe early 80s. You don't start appearing like you are deathly sick until much much later! You get possibly a few symptoms in the beginning. Then while the disease incubates in your body, you don't actually have outward symptoms. Or most people don't anyway. So he could have looked as perfectly fit as he did at Live Aid and still have had it by then. No doubt.

queen popinjay I wouldn't base anything on the word of Barbara.

I'm pretty sure he contracted back in 1982, because he looked ill on Saturday Night Live in their last performance in America.

You should keep your female intuition reserved for whos pregnant or not...it doesn't work for HIV/AIDS the same

The first HIV test became available in 1984, which is in all likelihood the year that Freddie took his first HIV test. He’d have taken it several times, because false positives and negatives were common at the time. Sometimes he might have gotten a false negative, giving him hope that the positive tests might have been wrong.

By 1985 or 1986 he’d have started developing symptoms. We know for sure that he had Kaposi’s sarcoma on his face in autumn 1986 as it is clearly visible in photos taken during his trip Japan.

In 1987, he has a blemish on his back biopsied, and this proved he has KS, which in turn resulted in his doctors’ diagnosis of what used to be called “full blown AIDS”.

From what we know about the disease and how long it takes from infection to progress to AIDS (i.e. CD4 T-cell count has fallen to a sufficient degree that severe immunosuppresion starts, leading to the tell-tale signs such as KS, and then ultimately pneumocystis pneumonia - which is what killed Freddie - and other deadly diseases), he’d have been infected in the late 1970s to early 1980s. Most likely he was infected in New York, one of the centres of HIV transmission, along with San Francisco, in the early 80s. If you look at the dates he was in New York in the 70s and 80s, you’ll have strong possibilities on when he got infected.

Costa how did you diagnose Freddie with PCP?

It says so on his death certificate. He died on bronchopneumonia, which in an AIDS victim is almost certainly pneumocystis pneumonia.