It would not change the fact that Freddie EXPOSED his lover (and some other lovers) without warning, does it?
Marknow · Member since
What was the story with Montsy when he stopped her drinking from his glass? This was post diagnosis around Easter'87 was it?
Many people who may have been exposed in the early 80's hid from it and got on with life until it became obvious they had Aids and finally got diagnosed. It was a strange phenomenon but it did happen, quite unbelievable by today's standard.
Costa86 · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]Marknow wrote:[/b]
What was the story with Montsy when he stopped her drinking from his glass? This was post diagnosis around Easter'87 was it?
Many people who may have been exposed in the early 80's hid from it and got on with life until it became obvious they had Aids and finally got diagnosed. It was a strange phenomenon but it did happen, quite unbelievable by today's standard.[/QUOTE]
Yes they hid from it in public, and that was very understandable. It was a huge, huge stigma.
Even "innocent" victims like Ryan White, and the Ray brothers, faced extreme stigmatisation, although they were hemophiliacs and essentially entirely blameless for getting the disease (blood products weren't screened for HIV until 1985, and unfortunately a huge percentage of hemophiliacs became infected).
But there is a very important difference between hiding your HIV status from the public/friends and so on, and hiding it from your lover. The latter is criminal, because it means you are knowingly exposing that person to what was at the time a 100% fatal virus.
Oh, and all that crap about Jim not knowing who infected whom stems from Jim's ignorance - with all due respect to him (I don't mean to insult the dead). Freddie slept with an innumerable number of men, whilst Jim would have slept with a relatively small number. And Jim never developed AIDS, which means he still didn't have AIDS in 1996 when HAART became available, which in turn means he was infected much later than Freddie. In other words, Freddie infected him when they met.
But let us just for the sake of argument depict a scenario where Jim already had HIV when he met Freddie. He obviously would not have known he had it (he got to know in 1990). On the other hand, Freddie knew he had it, and yet he left Jim none the wiser about this.
Quite a furore erupted when it came to light that Liberace infected three men, knowingly, with HIV. But not much is ever said about how Saint Freddie knowingly put Jim at risk.
The only explanation I can give to Freddie's behaviour which goes a small way towards exonerating him is this: by the time Freddie got to know he had HIV - i.e. 1985 - he had already been sleeping with Jim. Hence, he might have thought that whatever harm could be done, had already been done by then, so it would be useless to tell him at that point. This sort of rationalisation does in a way lessen Freddie's blame (from a moralistic if not from a criminal standpoint). But it still stands that he had the ethical duty to inform his lover immediately once his HIV status became known - not wait two bloody years till he did the KS biopsy. It really shows that Freddie didn't give much of a shit about Jim. He only became sentimental about him when he had lost all his looks, all his sex drive, etc, and he needed someone stable by his side.
Freddie was a generous, funny, kind, highly emotional and fun guy to be around. But he had absolutely no morals whatsoever. He was frankly a depraved, ultra-hedonistic, perverse sex addict. I'm ok with that. I still love him, despite that.
musicland munich · Member since
The relationship between Jim and Freddie started before 1985. As soon AZT was available (87`) he told Jim about his result(s).So he ( Jim) could get medication, if it would have been necessary.
Freddie was in belive that Jim was monogamously, so he didn`t expect that Jim would contract others with the Virus. So no real crime there.
The moralities might be a different subject...
The Real Wizard · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]people on streets wrote:[/b]
[QUOTE] [b]YourValentine wrote:[/b]
At the time it meant he was exposing his lover to a deadly illness without warning him. [/QUOTE]
Who says Jim didn't already have HIV?
We will never know.
[/QUOTE]
And that's just it.
Furthermore - Jim's book contains a whole lot of revisionist history, so why take his 1987 claim seriously too?
This will forever be an unsolved mystery, and in my opinion, not even worth our time.
Worst case scenario, as one poster here has already pointed out - Mercury would've been a grand schmuckaroo. But we'll never know.
It's best just to leave some things alone.
Biggus Dickus · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]
[QUOTE] [b]people on streets wrote:[/b]
[QUOTE] [b]YourValentine wrote:[/b]
At the time it meant he was exposing his lover to a deadly illness without warning him. [/QUOTE]
Who says Jim didn't already have HIV?
We will never know.
[/QUOTE]
And that's just it.
Furthermore - Jim's book contains a whole lot of revisionist history, so why take his 1987 claim seriously too?
This will forever be an unsolved mystery, and in my opinion, not even worth our time.
Worst case scenario, as one poster here has already pointed out - Mercury would've been a grand schmuckaroo. But we'll never know.
It's best just to leave some things alone.
[/QUOTE]
I think Peter Freestone has also mentioned 1987.
musicland munich · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]Biggus Dickus wrote
I think Peter Freestone has also mentioned 1987.[/QUOTE]
Yes that is / or maybe was the official Queen Camp Party line for a long time.
But to put things right. In that Barbara Valentin interview, they didn`t seperate HIV and AIDS...so it`s not safe to say that he had full blown AIDS for six years.
And in this case i would like to quote Paul Prenter who said that Freddie was tested manay times, and was afraid that he could develop AIDS...wich guides me to the assumption that he was diagnosed "positive" ( on whatever standards at that point ) by his doctor.
A little help. Freddie used regular human ratio when he found out he was a potential victim. By the beginning of the plague in the erly 80`s. The doctors suspected low death rates among People with HIV...
at the end of the 80`s...they suspected a death rate up to 90 % or more. So he acts step by step, like the most people would do I guess.
Costa86 · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]musicland munich wrote:[/b]
The relationship between Jim and Freddie started before 1985. As soon AZT was available (87`) he told Jim about his result(s).So he ( Jim) could get medication, if it would have been necessary.
Freddie was in belive that Jim was monogamously, so he didn`t expect that Jim would contract others with the Virus. So no real crime there.
The moralities might be a different subject...[/QUOTE]
Yes I think that's a good explanation. I will stick to that personally.
miraclesteinway · Member since
What we've been told is that Freddie was diagnosed with AIDS in 1987, not that he was diagnosed with HIV in 1987. We don't know when he was diagnosed with HIV but I personally know of someone who claims to have worked in the lab that tested his blood positive some time shortly before or shortly after Live Aid in 1985, and definitely before the Magic Tour. This woman certainly worked in a lab that tested blood for HIV in the 1980s, but I can't positively confirm if she tested Freddie's or not.
She told me in 2002 that he tested under his birth name in 1985, but of course everyone knew who he was anyway. She told me the lab staff were sworn to secrecy which was no different for any other patient, but that in this particular case there were severe warnings given in case anyone decided to leak something to a paper or the media.
I can't tell you if the woman who told me is lying, all I can tell you is I'm not lying in that I was told that story.
Remember however, that we now know that Mary Austin knew of his condition in 1986 because of an interview she gave on radio with Midge Ure, and she said that when he came off stage after Knebworth they looked at each other and she could see the pain in his face because he knew that it would be the last time he performed live on tour. Also remember that there was the article in The Sun in 1986 when Freddie was snapped coming back from Japan in Heathrow Airport and in this particular case, we know that Freddie indeed did have HIV at that time, so it probably came from a reliable source, unfortunately, meaning either a friend or a medical professional ultimately betrayed his confidence, or the media were able to get hold of confidential information through illegal means.
Biggus Dickus · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]miraclesteinway wrote:[/b]
What we've been told is that Freddie was diagnosed with AIDS in 1987, not that he was diagnosed with HIV in 1987. We don't know when he was diagnosed with HIV but I personally know of someone who claims to have worked in the lab that tested his blood positive some time shortly before or shortly after Live Aid in 1985, and definitely before the Magic Tour. This woman certainly worked in a lab that tested blood for HIV in the 1980s, but I can't positively confirm if she tested Freddie's or not.
She told me in 2002 that he tested under his birth name in 1985, but of course everyone knew who he was anyway. She told me the lab staff were sworn to secrecy which was no different for any other patient, but that in this particular case there were severe warnings given in case anyone decided to leak something to a paper or the media.
I can't tell you if the woman who told me is lying, all I can tell you is I'm not lying in that I was told that story.
Remember however, that we now know that Mary Austin knew of his condition in 1986 because of an interview she gave on radio with Midge Ure, and she said that when he came off stage after Knebworth they looked at each other and she could see the pain in his face because he knew that it would be the last time he performed live on tour. Also remember that there was the article in The Sun in 1986 when Freddie was snapped coming back from Japan in Heathrow Airport and in this particular case, we know that Freddie indeed did have HIV at that time, so it probably came from a reliable source, unfortunately, meaning either a friend or a medical professional ultimately betrayed his confidence, or the media were able to get hold of confidential information through illegal means. [/QUOTE]
That might explain why Freddie was reluctant of doing Magic Tour at first. I think he mentioned it in some fan club letter or some such, when he said something like "I didn't want to to the tour at first but now I'm glad I did it." I guess he wasn't sure if he still could perform like he wanted to. I'd think the Magic Tour gigs were pretty tough for him physically.
Costa86 · Member since
^ Yes I think what your friends says checks out with all we know, and everything points to him getting tested right when the first tests became available - i.e. 1985. The fact she told you this in 2002, when we knew much less, bolsters her story.
