Freddie Mercury‘s former PA and closest confidante has told NME he hates the idea of a new Queen film, as he doesn’t want to see the singer’s death portrayed on screen.
Peter Freestone was Mercury’s PA and bodyguard from 1979, and was one of the Queen frontman’s nurses during the final time of his life before Mercury’s death in 1991.
Freestone was a consultant on Bohemian Rhapsody, advising over the accuracy of details in the original Oscar-winning biopic.
Freestone told NME: “I don’t like the idea there could be any Bohemian Rhapsody II. Whatever they put in the film, you’d have to show 20 minutes or half-an-hour of Freddie dying and I don’t think anybody needs to see that.
“Even though it’s 28 years on, to have that in my face, it’s not necessary. And who in their right mind would need to see it?”
Freestone, who worked as a costumier for The Royal Ballet before meeting Mercury in 1979, applauded the original film, which saw Rami Malek win an Oscar for his portrayal of the singer.
“It’s an amazing film,” said Freestone. “It has to be for all the awards it’s won. Not everybody can be wrong. I understand some Queen fans’ complaints about how it changed their timeline. I don’t look at the film as telling the story from start to finish, I see each scene on its own and I can see the truth in each scene. It’s much embroidered, but there’s a grain of truth in each scene.”
Freestone believes the changes in timeline would make a sequel even harder to envisage. “Because of the changes in timeline, if a film carried on after Live Aid where the original film ends, how would you change things in a sequel back to normal?” he said.
“You couldn’t make a whole two-hour film about a specific moment, like the making of ‘Barcelona’. What they’ve done, they’ve done. It’s fine as it is.”