UK Edition
Bohemian Rhapsody film accused of 'airbrushing' Freddie Mercury's porn actress partner from his life
The Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody has been accused of ignoring the part played by a close friend in the singer’s life.
While it features several scenes with one of Mercury’s girlfriends, Mary Austin – who was said to have inspired the 1975 song Love Of My Life – there is no sight of another woman he loved profoundly, a soft porn actress called Barbara Valentin.
According to Mercury’s biographer Lesley-Ann Jones, Valentin had a significant influence on the singer’s life and work.
The film has already been accused of underplaying Freddie Mercury’s bi-sexuality and his legendary promiscuity.
Even before its release the production suffered several setbacks, including the loss of Sacha Baron Cohen, who was originally lined up to play Mercury, and the dramatic departure of its director, Bryan Singer, mid-way through filming.
Now Mercury’s biographer says that by missing out Valentin the film leaves a huge gap in the telling of his story.
Although the singer was famously promiscuous with both men and women, Jones says the deepest attachments he formed in his life were both with women – Austin and Valentin.
Austin is played in the film by British actress Lucy Boynton, but Valentin does not appear.
“I’m a bit annoyed about this film, because they’ve left out the other one completely,” said Jones. “Mary Austin is kind of the grieving 'widow' that we’re all used to hearing about, but there was another woman, maybe you haven’t even heard of her, called Barbara Valentin. She’s been left out of this film. It’s an airbrushing of somebody that was so vitally important to him.
“She and Freddie met in Munich when Queen were recording there in 84, and they fell in love and set up home together – they had an apartment together. She was the love of his life. She was like him: they were a mirror image of each other. She completely got him in every way imaginable – sexually, psychologically, every single way. He absolutely loved her.”
Jones says she fears the film Bohemian Rhapsody will attempt to sanitise Mercury’s life by ignoring the role Valentin played in caring for him when he contracted Aids.
“He was with her, not with Mary Austin, when he got his Aids diagnosis. He lived with her,” she said. “He went through all of that [HIV and Aids] with Barbara, not with Mary. Mary was somewhere else – I think she was probably pregnant.
“She was certainly pregnant at his funeral. Mary had to make room for Barbara. Mary was not the closest person to him towards the end of his life.”
Valentin – who appeared in the video of Queen’s single It’s A Hard Life as well as starring in a number of films by the German art-house director Rainer Fassbinder – died from a stroke, aged, 61, in 2002, by which point she had spent years fighting Queen’s management for some sort of recognition, including keeping the Munich apartment she lived in with Mercury.
Jones also says many fans have tried to simplify Mercury’s complex personal life, wanting to reduce his sexuality to either straight or gay.
“I came to the conclusion when I was writing the book that he was definitely bisexual, but the gay community had claimed him by that time, and so that was a struggle,” she says. “It was almost like the Queen Machine (as they always called it) wanted to portray that Freddie wasn’t really gay. There had to be a woman involved, to offset all the gossip and rumours that were circulating about Freddie.”
Bohemian Rhapsody is out in UK cinemas from Oct 24
Bohemian Rhapsody: The Definitive Biography of Freddie Mercury by Lesley-Ann Jones is published by Hodder & Stoughton at £12.99. To order your copy for £9.99, call 0844 871 1514 or visit the online Telegraph Bookshop