Mary Austin's biography is usually mentioned in connection with the life story of British singer Freddie Mercury. About the woman who became the only love of a talented musician, little was written in the newspapers, and rumors of a romance between them did not appear even after Mercury introduced her as his assistant.
Their romantic relationship dates back to a period in Mercury's biography about which little is known. But the former lovers remained close friends. Only Mary knows where the ashes of the singer are kept, he bequeathed most of his fortune to her.
Meet Freddie Mercury
Mary (not to be confused with writer Mary Hunter Austin, The Wandering Woman is one of her novels) was born into a poor family in South London. Her father was a carver and her mother worked as a secretary for a small company. The childhood of a girl cannot be called simple. Father and mother were deaf. I had to communicate with them exclusively with the help of lip reading or signs.
In her youth, Mary worked as a sales clerk at Biba, a fashionable clothing store in Kensington. Freddie Mercury met a girl in the early seventies. Then he, still a student, worked part-time in one of the trading shops, and Mary Austin worked nearby. Young people were introduced by Brian May. The Queen guitarist himself tried to court Mary, but she did not reciprocate.
The birth of a romantic relationship
Mercury secretly watched the relationship between a friend and a modest blonde. He was in love with Mary, but did not dare to approach the girl. Twenty-four-year-old Freddie greeted the elegant saleswoman from afar, blushed and smiled. The aspiring singer eventually overcame his natural modesty and nevertheless asked Mary Austin on a date.
The girl recalled that the musician seemed to her very artistic and self-confident. She admitted that she had never met such people before. Mary Austin was modest. Soon she fell in love with a young man, they started dating.
The lovers lived not far from each other. Soon they rented a small apartment on Holland Road and began to live together. Freddie Mercury and Mary Austin were happy with each other, but did not think about a joint future and did not make any far-reaching plans.
The couple had no money, so they limited themselves to a cozy corner for ten pounds a week. The young musician has just graduated from art college and has opened a stall in the market to sell his drawings and old stuff. Freddie Mercury and Mary Austin could only afford curtains that they hung in their own bedroom, and they had to share a bathroom and kitchen with neighbors.
Reassuringgift for Christmas
When Mary was twenty-three years old, her lover gave her a big box for Christmas, wrapped in beautiful paper. Inside was a smaller box, then even smaller and more. The artistic musician loved to make unusual gifts. The last box, the smallest, contained a beautiful jade ring.
The girl was speechless. She expected to receive something completely different as a gift. So Mary Austin asked which finger she should wear the ring on. Freddie Mercury replied that it was better to be anonymous, and then offered to become his wife. Mary was shocked but agreed.
A little time has passed, but the musician has already changed his mind. The girl saw a wedding dress of amazing beauty in an antique store and asked her lover if it was worth looking after the outfit. Freddie Mercury didn't say anything else about the wedding. Marriage ceased to interest the musician. He did not return to this topic again.
Mary Austin was disappointed, but deep down she knew from the very beginning that nothing would work out. The relationship between the lovers became difficult, but they continued to live together. The girl had a premonition that something was about to happen, but didn't know what to expect.
Discord between lovers
Career more and more fascinated Freddie Mercury. The singer disappeared on tour, sometimes he did not return home at all. Mary began to suspect that he had another. And then the musician finally realized that he was not created for the family. But after six years of warm relations, they becamereally close friends.
All the time Freddie wasn't on tour, he was partying with friends. And the musician, who is gaining popularity, bought a big house in the very center of the city, got a lot of cats and constantly fiddled only with them. Mary once suggested that her beloved have a child. It seemed to her that this could save their relationship. But Freddie made a scandal and got very angry.
A few days later, of course, he apologized, and also told his beloved the news, after which they could no longer be together. Mercury confessed to his homosexual orientation. After that, there was no place for intimate relationships in the love story of Freddie Mercury and Mary Austin. However, the girl remained grateful to her lover for the fact that he decided to directly discuss the changed preferences.
At that moment, Mercury told Mary that (despite his sexuality) she would forever be an important part of his life. They continued to live together for some time, but it looked rather unusual. At dinner parties since then, Mary has sat on one side of the musician, and his boyfriend on the other.
Freddie Mercury after breakup
Mary Austin eventually moved out of their common apartment, and the company of her former lover bought her a house for three hundred thousand pounds. Since then, the girl could only watch from the side as her ex-boyfriend and good friend opened a new chapter in his life.
After parting with Mary, Freddie Mercury became a frequenter of gay bars, inliterally hunted for partners and could not fall asleep without another guy for the night. A few dozen regular boyfriends and hundreds or even thousands of random connections could not lead to anything good.
During the seven years that Mary Austin and Freddie Mercury lived together, fully respecting their marital vow "both in sorrow and in joy", he turned from a poor student into a famous musician. But the break with the only woman in his life was a really serious test for the singer. It was to this graceful blonde that he dedicated his famous songs Love of me life and My melancholy blues.
What did the press know about the mistress of the musician
At the same time, Mary Austin and Freddie Mercury (photos of the couple did not appear in the press during the romance, and after it was over everyone decided that Mary was just a fiction) continued to communicate. She worked for him as a secretary, was a personal assistant to a musician and a housekeeper. The singer spoke of a woman as a good friend who can be trusted with any secret.
Journalists knew almost nothing about Mary Austin. The photo of the girl was not published, so only close friends and acquaintances of Mercury saw her. There were rare mentions of the novel in the press, and after parting, the name of the musician's beloved began to be mentioned less and less.
Help named Mary
In the eighties, Freddie Mercury began to appear in public with a thin assistant named Mary, but for some reason no one associated this woman with the same Mary Austin. She was mentioned withoutsurnames, just as a musician's assistant. There was no gossip about Mercury's relationship with the lady who accompanied him everywhere. No one mentioned who this blonde was for the musician in the past.
Freddie and Mary Austin (their photo can be seen in the article) were together on November 23, 1991, the day that became fatal for the musician's fans. Mercury then announced that he had AIDS, and the next day he died. A serious illness was discovered a few years ago. The woman who accompanied him was then introduced to the public as the musician's only love, to whom he left his fortune.
After that, joint photos of the couple from the personal archive of Mick Rock began to appear in the press. In the footage from 1974, the young musician gently clasped a pretty blonde in his arms, who resembled a woman whose face, swollen from tears, had recently appeared in all the newspapers.
Personal life and family of Mary Austin
Very personal, extraordinarily touching photos and videos also appeared in the media at that time: a talented musician played with Mary's little son at Christmas. He was the godfather of her eldest son. After breaking up with Freddie Mercury, Mary eventually got married. Before that, she changed several lovers.
The artist Pierce Cameron became the chosen one of the musician's mistress. From him the woman gave birth to two sons. Relations in the family did not work out. Mary Austin also spent a lot of time with Freddie, which her husband did not like. But the woman remained a friend of the musician. Freddie Mercury himself admitted later that hethe end of his life considered Mary his common-law wife and could never love a man like her.
Testament in favor of Austin
Freddie Mercury hid for the rest of his life what he was sick with. With new advances in medicine, he could have lived much longer if he had been careful. When he told Mary Austin that he was going to bequeath his house to her, the woman suggested that she simply write a power of attorney.
But even then the musician knew that he did not have long. Long before Freddie's death, Mercury reached the point that he considered himself invulnerable. By the time he realized what was happening, it was already too late. Then the musician told his former lover that if everything had turned out differently, then Mary would have become his wife, that is, the house would have belonged to her anyway.
Death of British musician
On that fateful day, Mary Austin was at Freddie's, but went out for a while to put her son to bed. At home, she was caught by a call from a doctor who said that Mercury was already dying. She was only ten minutes late, but then beat herself up for months for it. The musician's friends hoped that he would live at least a few more days. Even his parents did not have time to arrive from the outskirts of London.
Mary after the death of Freddie Mercury
How did you survive the death of your former lover Mary Austin? It was unusually hard, but over time she recovered from the loss. At the musician's funeral, she posed for the press, then gave rare interviews. Mary Austin could sometimes go out to Mercury fans, from time to time appeared at the house onLogan Place.
Some time later, Mary, prettier, with impeccable manicures and a lovely hairstyle, told her heartbreaking love story to the hysterical parts of Thierry Lang. But all the secrets of this story have not been revealed so far.
In his will, Freddie Mercury indicated that the income from the sale of his records, most of the state and the mansion leaves his former mistress. The musician's body was cremated. Only Mary Austin knows where the singer's remains are to this day. She has kept this secret for almost thirty years.
