The iconic Queen frontman has gone down in history as one of the true entertainment legends of the 20th century. But he was also a man of dichotomies: a rock ’n’ roll god who was intensely shy and self-conscious; a flamboyant, ultra-camp star who was teasingly secretive about discussing his sexuality; a lover of fine art and culture known for his decadent lifestyle. A planned Hollywood biopic of the star was set to feature Sasha Baron Cohen as Mercury, but the character actor decided to opt out of the project, citing “creative differences”. The truth? Cohen recently revealed in an interview with Howard Stern his concerns that the proposed script – influenced by the remaining members of Queen – avoided shedding light on Freddie’s infamous hedonistic lifestyle. So just how wild was everyone’s favourite Persian pop prince? 

Notoriously private, the Mercury behind the elaborate showman remains quite the enigma to this day. Unlike present-day pop stars sharing their fancy lifestyles on social media, Freddie chose, for the most part, to keep his public and private spheres distinct. Still, in archive footage shown in the documentary The Great Pretender, Freddie himself admitted “I’m a man of extremes… there’s no half measures with me,” and it’s clear this absolutely applied to the hedonistic heyday of Queen at their peak.

In the wake of global success propelled by the rock operetta “Bohemian Rhapsody”, Freddie threw a Halloween party of such decadent magnitude that it became retrospectively dubbed ‘Saturday Night in Sodom’. So what would a lucky attendee to the The Fairmont Hotel in New Orleans in 1978 encounter? Well, according to an in-depth feature by Uncut, the list includes: hermaphrodite dwarves adorned with platters of fine Bolivian cocaine atop their heads; naked waiters, dancers and contortionists of all feasible genders and ethnicities taking dollar bills straight into various orifices; complimentary blow jobs from prostitutes in the bathrooms, not to mention wrestlers getting down and dirty in bathtubs brimming with uncooked liver. It’s the kind of shit that makes Nero’s Roman orgies look like a school trip to the garden centre. And the price of this night of deliciously anarchic extravagance? “Fuck the cost, darlings, let us live a little,” was Freddie’s attitude to footing the bill. 

“Excess all areas” was a mantra that Freddie carried into the 1980s. He splashed out on a luxury apartment in New York and hurled himself headlong into the city’s underground gay club culture. It was here that he allowed free reign on his promiscuity, declaring “New York is Sin City and here I am free to slut myself to the hilt. I get up in the morning, scratch my head and wonder who I’m going to fuck next.”

Where Freddie’s memoirs remain sadly unwritten, we can look to other figures in his life to fill in the gaps. In a biography by Lesley-Anne Jones, we find none other than Sir Elton John revealing the extent of their outlandish lifestyle: “We would be up for nights, sitting there at 11 in the morning, still flying high. Queen were supposed to be catching a plane and Freddie would be like, ‘Oh fuck, another line, dear?’ His appetites were unquenchable. He could out-party me, which is saying something.”

Peter ‘Phoebe’ Freestone, Freddie’s loyal assistant for over a decade, revealed an average day in the life of early 1980s Mercury. This involved casting out the previous night’s sexual conquests, Freestone picking up a shitload of cocaine before Mercury headed out in a stretch limo for another night of fuck-fuelled frivolity. Mercury was curating chemsex sessions two decades before the term was even coined.

The lavish lifestyle would continue on tour, where Freddie would reportedly blend lines of coke, furtive fucks with strangers and sell out stadium performances in the space of a couple of hours. He also rode around on Darth Vader’s shoulders singing “We Will Rock You” at the peak of Star Wars mania. Topping the Sith master whilst performing your own rock anthem to millions of adoring fans, AND being slutty and high – does it get any better than this?

However, his appetite for all things debauched did sometimes lead to conflicts. A proposed series of joint singles with Michael Jackson fell apart when MJ took umbrage to Freddie getting nose-deep into a mountain of cocaine in his living room. For his part, Freddie became irked by the constant presence of Jacko’s pet llama at one of their recording sessions. Meanwhile, his impassioned rows with lovers led to injuries on multiple occasions, including having his hand viciously bitten into by then-boyfriend Bill Reid. So far, so pretty goddam wild right?

But Freddie’s appetite for excess could not and would not last forever. It led to infighting with his band, prompting a move to Munich to record new material. It was here that he hosted a legendary birthday party in 1985, complete with all the extravagances and flamboyance the world had come to expect from the singer. But according to manager John Reid, this party was “Freddie’s last hurrah.. the winding down of the decadent days… kind of like the last days of Berlin.”

The calmer side of Freddie’s personality took precedent thereafter. He had a long-term boyfriend, Jim Hutton, who described his Freddie in a TV interview as “quiet, very reserved… just your average Joe Bloggs on the street.”

The winding down of Freddie’s lavish party lifestyle coincided with his understanding that he had contracted AIDS, a devastating repercussion of the carefree years spent previously. Yet despite increasingly poor health, Freddie continued to break boundaries and pursue new passions. Apart from Jim, Freddie’s other love late in life was opera, leading to a surprising partnership with Montserrat Caballé and the outstanding performance on the track Barcelona. He continued to work and record, both individually and with Queen, until he could physically no longer do so.

In Freddie Mercury, we encounter a wild streak both on and off the stage. Yes, he was the man behind eye-popping parties of excess and extravagance – parties we’d all secretly sacrifice a non-essential body part to have had the chance to attend. But he also consistently channeled this frenetic energy into creating music and delivering performances that shaped popular culture for a generation. As Freddie says, he was a man of extremes, and he did things big. Big performances, big excesses, big sex. Whereas Sasha Baron Cohen saw great potential in a movie that brought this Freddie to light, it was not destined to be. In a star who was as enigmatic as he was outlandish, perhaps it’s for the best that this wild side of Freddie is left to hearsay, testimony and our own sordid imaginations.