Dr Atkinson was a close friend of Freddie's, not merely his doctor.
If the guy in the photo isn't Atkinson, then I have no idea who it is - it could be anyone. But I think he was in his 60s in 1991, so it may well be him.
Oscar J · Member since
Dr. Rowan Atkinson? No wonder Freddie didn't make it.
Oscar J · Member since
Oscar J · Member since
Oscar J · Member since
Biggus Dickus · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]musicland munich wrote:[/b]
The (first) photo is from September / October 1991. That was the pic Roger is referring to in the TATDOOL documentary. It was released by the The Sun a few weeks before his death. I personally think the Sun do it for tactical reasons at that point, but that would move things way too far from the original post.[/QUOTE]
What's your source on the date of the picture? The documentary made no comments about when exactly it was taken.
matt z · Member since
Hah. Way to lighten it up, Oscar
andres_clip · Member since
It does not matter how many "in The end "pics I see of Freddie. He will always be rememberd as The Greatest.
musicland munich · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]Biggus Dickus wrote:[/b]
[QUOTE] [b]musicland munich wrote:[/b]
The (first) photo is from September / October 1991. That was the pic Roger is referring to in the TATDOOL documentary. It was released by the The Sun a few weeks before his death. I personally think the Sun do it for tactical reasons at that point, but that would move things way too far from the original post.[/QUOTE]
What's your source on the date of the picture? The documentary made no comments about when exactly it was taken.[/QUOTE]
I don`t want to reveal my source in public (right now).
But with the actually two released pics, "The Sun" wants to "finish him off" back then. "The Sun" was on that subject since1985. In 1986 they( "The Sun") were quite sure that he has it.
Costa86 · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]musicland munich wrote:[/b]
[QUOTE] [b]Biggus Dickus wrote:[/b]
[QUOTE] [b]musicland munich wrote:[/b]
The (first) photo is from September / October 1991. That was the pic Roger is referring to in the TATDOOL documentary. It was released by the The Sun a few weeks before his death. I personally think the Sun do it for tactical reasons at that point, but that would move things way too far from the original post.[/QUOTE]
What's your source on the date of the picture? The documentary made no comments about when exactly it was taken.[/QUOTE]
I don`t want to reveal my source in public (right now).
But with the actually two released pics, "The Sun" wants to "finish him off" back then. "The Sun" was on that subject since1985. In 1986 they( "The Sun") were quite sure that he has it.
[/QUOTE]
It wouldn't have take a genius, or an investigator of Sherlock Holmes astuteness, to know that Freddie probably had the dreaded illness. He didn't need to display any outward signs - they deduced it based on (a) the fact that people close to him were dying of it, and (b) the fact that they probably had been given some tip-offs by some arsehole/s that he had been testing positive in early 1985/1986 HIV tests.
But tabloids are tabloids. We all know that they're absolute rubbish, and we wouldn't expect them to treat such an issue with any kind of consideration, or to show some appreciation for a musical genius who gave the world so much wonderful music. So I think, even then, people were not surprised that The Sun would publish that awful photo.
As we all know, all the The Sun, or The Daily Mail, or which ever newspaper care about is making money. They make money through advertising, and advertising works if many people buy the newspaper (or read it online nowadays). Many people profess to hating celebrity gossip, but secretly enjoy some of it. This is true especially if it involves megastars who lead a controversial life (e.g. Freddie, MJ, Elvis, Houston, etc.) and if it involves death or serious injury. In this world of morally deficient capitalist greed, it has come to be seen as 'expected' that The Sun would publish the photos of a seriously ill man.
miraclesteinway · Member since
It was actually a secret that was harder to keep than to spread. It is an enormous pressure on the friends and family of someone ill to not be able to talk about it except to a select few people, and Freddie didn't want to talk about it so he could focus on working and making the best of his years - fair enough. It could have been anyone that blabbed to the Sun about it. It could also have been that a stalking reporter hanging outside the house followed someone from the door of the house to a clinic to pick up the doctor, or to a pharmacy, and evidently they stalked Freddie many times on the way to his doctor. I heard somewhere (can't remember the exact source, so please take this with a pinch of salt) that Joe Fanelli let something slip in a bar or something, when he upset (maybe someone on here can dig out the exact story, or confirm that I am indeed talking bullshit!!).
In hindsight, it perhaps would have been better if Freddie had made a statement earlier on, because it may well have alleviated the pressure from the press. That said, the press had no business stalking him the way they did, knowing full well that he was a very ill man, and he had the right to his privacy that was denied him in those years - I remember it seemed like years that it went on for. It's true that all celebrities use the press to their advantage, and the press use celebrities to sell papers, but there comes a point where a line should be drawn and enough is enough, and the press went far beyond that point with Freddie in those months.
I think the reason Freddie didn't make a statement before wasn't because he felt ashamed, wasn't because of the fans, but I think he just didn't want his parents and sister to read it in the paper before they had to. He was aware that the whole situation would be very difficult for them and I think he just wanted to protect them from it a bit longer. It's easy to forget that Freddie was a human being, with a normal side to him. It's easy to forget that he would go round to his mother's for tea, meals, have a family life, and really not act like a superstar. But you can see it in the documentaries where his mother speaks - she's absolutely full of love and pride for him, and you can also see how sad she is that he's no longer here, and the difficulty of speaking about what actually happened.
Jim Hutton came out and said in 2006 that he didn't think Freddie wanted to make the statement at all, and that it wasn't even written by him because in the 48 hours before the 24th, he was virtually unable to communicate, but Jim Beach has confirmed that the statement was prepared weeks before, and Brian May said that Freddie did want it to be known for the sake of awareness.
A former friend of my family claims that she was in the lab that tested Freddie's blood positive in 1985. I don't know how much truth there is to her statement, because people have a habit of talking rubbish, but this was back in 2000 that she told us and it was the first time I knew anything about the 1985 tests. Any person in that lab could have blabbed back then, and of course there is that interview with John Deacon published in 1985, and the AIDS rumour is mentioned in that, so things were certainly happening in the press even then, and then of course there was the paparazzi shot from late '86, and there were a couple of flurries of information in '87 and '88 but the shit really hit the fan around the Miracle album didn't it.
It was terrible actually. It's enough that you fall ill with a disease you know is going to kill you, without the entire country's media trying to drag your reputation through the dirt - that's all it was, sensationalism. They didn't give a crap about him, they just wanted a story, and sleazed it all up. How many of these journalists, though, if you delve into their private lives, would be caught with their pants down? It makes me a bit angry even today, not so much because of Freddie, but because these things are still happening.
BETA215 · Member since
The shitty side of life. :'(
Costa86 · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]miraclesteinway wrote:[/b]
It was actually a secret that was harder to keep than to spread. It is an enormous pressure on the friends and family of someone ill to not be able to talk about it except to a select few people, and Freddie didn't want to talk about it so he could focus on working and making the best of his years - fair enough. It could have been anyone that blabbed to the Sun about it. It could also have been that a stalking reporter hanging outside the house followed someone from the door of the house to a clinic to pick up the doctor, or to a pharmacy, and evidently they stalked Freddie many times on the way to his doctor. I heard somewhere (can't remember the exact source, so please take this with a pinch of salt) that Joe Fanelli let something slip in a bar or something, when he upset (maybe someone on here can dig out the exact story, or confirm that I am indeed talking bullshit!!).
In hindsight, it perhaps would have been better if Freddie had made a statement earlier on, because it may well have alleviated the pressure from the press. That said, the press had no business stalking him the way they did, knowing full well that he was a very ill man, and he had the right to his privacy that was denied him in those years - I remember it seemed like years that it went on for. It's true that all celebrities use the press to their advantage, and the press use celebrities to sell papers, but there comes a point where a line should be drawn and enough is enough, and the press went far beyond that point with Freddie in those months.
I think the reason Freddie didn't make a statement before wasn't because he felt ashamed, wasn't because of the fans, but I think he just didn't want his parents and sister to read it in the paper before they had to. He was aware that the whole situation would be very difficult for them and I think he just wanted to protect them from it a bit longer. It's easy to forget that Freddie was a human being, with a normal side to him. It's easy to forget that he would go round to his mother's for tea, meals, have a family life, and really not act like a superstar. But you can see it in the documentaries where his mother speaks - she's absolutely full of love and pride for him, and you can also see how sad she is that he's no longer here, and the difficulty of speaking about what actually happened.
Jim Hutton came out and said in 2006 that he didn't think Freddie wanted to make the statement at all, and that it wasn't even written by him because in the 48 hours before the 24th, he was virtually unable to communicate, but Jim Beach has confirmed that the statement was prepared weeks before, and Brian May said that Freddie did want it to be known for the sake of awareness.
A former friend of my family claims that she was in the lab that tested Freddie's blood positive in 1985. I don't know how much truth there is to her statement, because people have a habit of talking rubbish, but this was back in 2000 that she told us and it was the first time I knew anything about the 1985 tests. Any person in that lab could have blabbed back then, and of course there is that interview with John Deacon published in 1985, and the AIDS rumour is mentioned in that, so things were certainly happening in the press even then, and then of course there was the paparazzi shot from late '86, and there were a couple of flurries of information in '87 and '88 but the shit really hit the fan around the Miracle album didn't it.
It was terrible actually. It's enough that you fall ill with a disease you know is going to kill you, without the entire country's media trying to drag your reputation through the dirt - that's all it was, sensationalism. They didn't give a crap about him, they just wanted a story, and sleazed it all up. How many of these journalists, though, if you delve into their private lives, would be caught with their pants down? It makes me a bit angry even today, not so much because of Freddie, but because these things are still happening. [/QUOTE]
Regarding the former family friend - she could very well be telling the truth - the first tests having come out in 1985, it's to be expected that someone in such a high risk group would be tested as soon as they could. And we knew much less about the whole timeline in 2000 (most info came out in interviews after 2005), so the fact that what the friend said back then corroborates with what we know now, adds credence.
Incidentally, that's exactly how news gets out - as you said, it's incredibly hard to keep a secret. So it must have been a dreadful burden for Freddie to keep mum for seven years.
miraclesteinway · Member since
The story that I have is that this couple we know once lived in London. She was a microbiologist, at time working in a lab that dealt with blood from HIV tests. However it happened, the people testing the blood knew the names of the patient that they were testing, rather than simply a number - which isn't a problem because the people working in these labs know that they can't talk about any of the work they do that involves the name of a patient lest they lose their job. He was tested under his own name, but of course enough people knew his real name that it didn't slip under the radar. She said that after they tested the blood positive, they actually all stood in the lab and cried because they knew basically what was going to happen. The sentence she used was 'We knew there was no hope'.
I can't tell you more than that, because that's all I know, and as I've said, I have no idea what the truth is behind this story. For all I know she could have made it up or be telling me a story that a friend told her, so I've never given it too much weight until actually, I realise now that the timeline fits with the information that we now have. Since Paul Gambaccini has told us that in the very early '80s Freddie's attitude was 'f**k it, I'm doing everything with everyone', we can assume that he was tested either because people in his circle started to test positive and he knew it, or because he started to feel ill then. While we can now pretty much say that he knew in '85 (we can't be sure, but if this story holds any water, it's possible), we can never be sure as to when he contracted it. Perhaps he knew himself - and in fact he probably did know - but it's not for us to know.
What we know about the virus though is that it progressed much faster then than it does now. HIV today is weak in comparison, which is very good news. I know someone who was tested positive 7 years ago and is still not requiring medication. This was unheard of even 15 years ago. Of course it still progresses, but the progression is slower, and in the case of the person I know, the doctor does not want to prescribe medication to a healthy patient, because the medication itself still causes problems even today.
miraclesteinway · Member since
- I know a more skeptical reader could say 'miraclesteinway, you could have made this story up because you know the timeline as everyone else does here', but you'll just have to trust me on this one. Well, or not, it doesn't matter really!
