One of Freddie's telling comments in Budapest

i don't dispute this ^^^^
what i am saying is - it was a closely guarded secret
so he (Freddie) is not likely to leak his own secret by making cryptic comments about "still being alive"

Good catch, Bad Seed ...

Is this BBC 4 interview the one?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0171x1k

In this interview, Mary Austin mentions at about the 23 minute mark that Freddie knew on the last tour.

He performed great on that tour despite his illness. I think his performances from '86 are a testament to his strength and devotion to giving fans everything he had.

I always thought he looked a bit anxious on The Magic Tour, compared to previous years. But that could be 20 20.

[QUOTE] [b]Panchgani wrote:[/b]

Good catch, Bad Seed ...

Is this BBC 4 interview the one?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0171x1k

In this interview, Mary Austin mentions at about the 23 minute mark that Freddie knew on the last tour.[/QUOTE]

Indeed, well spotted.

Don't you need to pass a health and insurance test before big tours though?

There are a million and one versions of the story regarding Freddie's health. There is, also, the truth.

Whilst speculating over the whole thing may make for some interesting discussion on a forum, I still don't get the need to delve into it all. What happened happened.

We all love Queen. We all love the music, the performances, the magic and the memory. Of course the death of Freddie is part and parcel of the history, and will be touched upon in the endless documentation of the Queen story.

But where's the line between fandom and morbid fascination of a personal life? Why do we NEED to still be guessing, 22 years down the line, the whys and the wherefores? Leave it be.

Freddie left a lasting legacy of fine music and entertainment: focus on that!

C'mon - be happy :-)

I am more interested in how Freddie's illness affected "the path" that Queen followed. Those "there's been a lot of rumors" statements during the Magic Tour ... seemed to imply that Freddie knew he was ill ... and now Mary Austin has confirmed it. Later tours just were not in the cards (possibly because of insurance companies and health tests as mentioned before).

I am glad that Bob gave this topic "an aura of authenticity" so that another poster (Bad Seed) can mention the Mary Austin interview. Too often the "When did Freddie know?" topics get to have a voyeuristic quality about Freddie's personal life, but in my opinion this time this "Topic" did not cross that line.

It only took a little digging with Google for me to find the actual Mary Austin interview and post the link here.

^ and there we have it. Lovely post.

Indeed, I don't have the morbid curiosity about his health providing some kind of enjoyment of watching his appearance deteriorate in the photos. In fact, the latest round of These Are The Days Our Lives video outtakes were a bit too much for me. I would've been better off not seeing them.

^^^ this

i was late knowing - my working life at that time meant leaving early and home late - sleeping all weekend - basically missing everything going on in the real world

even the music awards where FM wore the blue suit - i thought it was cancer.

first i really heard was travelling to london on the monday morning and hearing it on the radio - i was so shocked - but personally, i preferred to hear it that way - the same way i heard about Bonham, bon Scott, Randy Rhoads, Dio and others....always better than watching your heroes fade away - i'm being selfish

Yeah guys, I get what you're saying: this topic didn't cross any lines, but at the same time it is just another discussion about when he knew. I didn't mean to offend anyone,point the finger or call any contributor to the thread "voyeurs". I just see it as another in the long line of "how, when and why" type threads, which is by no means me being disparaging to the OP. Rather than dig up all of the others (threads, I mean lol), I just finally aired my personal POV here, whilst there was something fresh and relevant on the subject. I don't see what knowing when he knew he was dying achieves, but that's more my preference not to know because it still upsets me (yes, I'm a big soft, sensitive dafty) even to this day.

[QUOTE] [b]Bad Seed wrote:[/b]

I've mentioned this a few times now but in that recent radio documentary (Mark Goodier, Smooth Radio?) Mary clearly state's that both she and Freddie were well aware of his health situation at the Knebworth show.[/QUOTE]

That's right. The official thruth is that he got the test results in 1987. But other members of the band and sources close to him have confirmed that he must have guessed, that something is wrong or that he was not terribly well already in 1986....

[QUOTE] [b]Walter White wrote:[/b]

Yeah guys, I get what you're saying: this topic didn't cross any lines, but at the same time it is just another discussion about when he knew. I didn't mean to offend anyone,point the finger or call any contributor to the thread "voyeurs".
[/QUOTE]

Nah, it's all good. Nobody's offended by this kind of inquisitive chatter with good intentions. But there are other threads where it has gotten pretty morbid.

[QUOTE] [b]ploughman wrote:[/b]

The official thruth is that he got the test results in 1987. But other members of the band and sources close to him have confirmed that he must have guessed, that something is wrong or that he was not terribly well already in 1986....
[/QUOTE]

Well, if we can read between the lines here ... it looks like Mary was the only person he told early on.

Remember that interview from 1986 where he's dressed in the white and red outfit and says Mary is his only real friend ? I wonder what the timeline of that interview is compared to when he found out about his illness..