Freddie Mercury’s secret daughter revealed. Her existence has been hidden for 48 years. Now Mail reveals fling with wife of a close friend – and how his loved ones kept showbusiness’s biggest secret

A bombshell new biography of Queen’s iconic frontman Freddie Mercury is to stun the world of showbusiness by revealing the existence of a secret daughter.

The book, Love, Freddie, tells the story of a child who was conceived accidentally during a fling with the wife of a close friend in 1976, a year after Bohemian Rhapsody was a hit.

Her existence was known only to Mercury’s closest circle, including his parents and sister, the rest of the band members and the love of his life, Mary Austin.

They all kept Freddie’s last secret, but the girl, who is now 48 and lives in Europe, where she is a medical professional and also a mother – making Freddie a posthumous grandfather – has come forward to tell her story to respected rock biographer Lesley-Ann Jones.

She was raised in a loving family but always knew that Mercury, a frequent visitor, was her real father. Before he died of bronchial pneumonia caused by Aids in 1991, he gave her 17 volumes of detailed personal journals which she kept a secret.

These she has now given to Jones, who has written three biographies of the singer previously, and they form the basis for the new book which will be published in September.

The book tells the story of a child who was conceived accidentally during a fling with the wife of a close friend in 1976.

Freddie Mercury, the late frontman of the band Queen, performs in London in October 1976

The revelation will come as a huge shock to the singer’s millions of fans, who have long loved and accepted him as a gay man.

His late last boyfriend, Jim Hutton, is one of a number who have written books about their experiences with him.

Yet no one, until now, has ever suggested the existence of a secret love child.

A legendary showman, known for his flamboyance, wit and four-octave vocal range, Freddie had a number of full relationships with women, including Mary Austin, whom he met when she was 19 and he 24, long before he was propelled to superstardom.

The couple lived together, and were engaged for a while, before Freddie came out as gay. They never had any children, although Mary went on to have two sons with another partner, and remained close to Freddie for the rest of his life.

There was another, later, romance too, in the early 1980s, with Austrian actress Barbara Valentin.

This third liaison with a woman – the mother of his love child – was, however, something Freddie kept a closely guarded secret. The woman is understood to have died years ago. In chapter one of the book, there is a handwritten letter from Freddie’s daughter – known only as ‘B’ – in which she says: ‘Freddie Mercury was and is my father. We had a very close and loving relationship from the moment I was born and throughout the final 15 years of his life.

‘He adored me and was devoted to me. The circumstances of my birth may seem, by most people’s standards, unusual and even outrageous. That should come as no surprise. It never detracted from his commitment to love and look after me. He cherished me like a treasured possession.’

Jones, who has also written books on David Bowie, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones, was first approached by ‘B’ three years ago, and initially had concerns about her authenticity.

‘My instinct was to doubt everything, but I am absolutely sure she is not a fantasist,’ she says. ‘No one could have faked all this. Why would she have worked with me for three-and-a half years, never demanding anything?

‘In my experience of fantasists, and I’ve met a few, they seek instant gratification, publicity and reward. She has never asked for money. She does not want recognition. Both Freddie and her stepfather left her extremely wealthy. She was not provided for through Freddie’s will, but by a private, legal arrangement, so no one will find her mentioned there.’

Freddie Mercury marks his 38th birthday with his ex-fiancee Mary Austin, at his party on September 5, 1984, after his Wembley Arena concert in London

A young Freddie Mercury with his mother, Jer Bulsara

The author is convinced that ‘B’ is true to her word: ‘Freddie Mercury was not who you think he was. He took his greatest secret to the grave,’ she says. ‘He was a hands-on, devoted dad. He described fatherhood as the fulfilment of his most cherished ambition and as the greatest blessing of his life.’

She adds: ‘His only child was conceived accidentally with the wife of one of his closest friends, while his friend was away on an extended business trip. For the Roman Catholic mother, abortion was out of the question.

‘It was decided between the three adults that the child would live with her mother and her husband – the child’s stepfather. Freddie would have his own rooms at each of their homes. The three close friends would raise the child together. Freddie visited and stayed with them frequently. He spoke to his daughter every day when he was away on tour or in the recording studio.

‘She knew from toddlerhood which of the two men was her real father. Outside the unusual family, privacy and discretion were maintained to a degree that not even some members of Freddie’s personal household had any idea that he had a child.’

Freddie started writing the diaries in 1976, when he first learned about the pregnancy. Each book has 192 pages, they’re handwritten in ballpoint or rollerball pen – sometimes in black ink, sometimes in blue, occasionally in pencil. In them, he commits his extraordinary story to paper, starting in Zanzibar, in 1946, where he was born Farrokh Bulsara, to Parsi-Indian parents.

They also chronicle him attending a British-style boarding school in India from the age of eight to 16 and how the family was forced to flee Zanzibar in the 1964 revolution, before settling in Middlesex.

Freddie’s first entry in the original journal was made on Sunday, June 20, 1976, two days after Queen released their single – written by bassist John Deacon – You’re My Best Friend from their 1975 album A Night at the Opera.

The band were preparing for a short UK tour that September, which would include their historic biggest concert to date, in Hyde Park on September 18. He wrote his final entry in the last notebook on Wednesday, July 31, 1991, as his health failed.

‘At a conservative estimate, Freddie wrote around 555,000 words in total in just under 15 years,’ says Jones. Shortly before his death, on November 24 1991, he entrusted the collection of 17 volumes to his then 15-year-old daughter.

Only her nanny, mother, stepfather and Mary Austin knew that he had gifted them to her. ‘He instructed her not to read the more graphic journals, eye-wateringly frank about his reckless lifestyle, until she reached her 25th birthday,’ says Jones. ‘She has stated that if anyone else tries to claim ownership of the diaries, she will burn them.’

It was the extraordinary wealth of verifiable, but new, information contained in the journals that further convinced Jones of B’s identity when she first agreed to meet her, back in 2022.

They met in Montreux, Switzerland – not where ‘B’ is from, but a city chosen as a ‘Freddie-centric’ location: he lived in the city for many years, recorded several albums there, and a bronze statue of Mercury stands on the lakeside promenade as a tribute.

At first Jones had no idea whom she was meeting – or the bombshell that was about to drop. ‘She did not sell herself to me as Freddie’s daughter. She did not even identify herself when she first contacted me.

‘Having read my book, Love Of My Life [the Mercury biography Jones wrote in 2021], she emailed to thank me for it, but told me there were still many things I should know.

‘She had assumed I could simply add new material to the existing book, and publish an updated edition. I explained that publishing doesn’t work like that.

‘She was not at all keen to begin with on me writing a new book – her concern all along has been privacy, which is of utmost importance to her.

‘I spent weeks trying to guess her identity, and eventually worked it out. She admitted to it only when I put it to her. We agreed to work together, and I went to Montreux to meet her.’

‘B’ brought the diaries along to the meeting, and also other effects, such as photos, cards, notes and bank statements – to act as proof that she was who she claimed to be. Her privacy, however, was crucial to her. True to her word, Jones won’t even disclose any physical description of the woman, so worried is she about her identity coming out.

‘She wants her family’s life to remain just as it is,’ she says. ‘She will be spending the summer in a far-flung location, to avoid both publicity for the book and any attempts to find her.’

In another letter included in the book, ‘B’ explains further her reasons for sharing Freddie’s journals after 30 years.

‘After more than three decades of lies, speculation and distortion, it is time to let Freddie speak,’ she says. ‘Those who have been aware of my existence kept his greatest secret out of loyalty to Freddie. That I choose to reveal myself in my own midlife is my decision and mine alone. I have not, at any point, been coerced into doing this.

‘He entrusted his collection of private notebooks to me, his only child and his next of kin, the written record of his private thoughts, memories and feelings about everything he had experienced.

‘His gift to me was our secret. Although those who lived with him and shared his life knew of the existence of the notebooks, none of them knew, after his death, what had become of them.

‘His family, fellow band members, closest friends, associates and management have had no idea until now that he gave them to me as a present.’

‘Mary Austin – the wonderful woman who was to all intents and purposes his wife until death parted them – knew absolutely everything about him, including all his undisclosed secrets.

‘Everyone else . . . they knew only what Freddie wanted them to know. Which wasn’t much.

‘Freddie was an intensely private man. He gave so few interviews that he was famous for it.’

As a result of this, says B, it was easy since his death for people to ‘exploit and betray him’.

‘Their versions of Freddie are far removed from the man he really was. They have done this for their own profit and ego. Freddie would have been deeply wounded by it all.

‘I had read everything that Lesley-Ann Jones had ever written about my father when I wrote to her towards the end of 2021, with the intention of offering her the responsibility of sharing his true story.

‘I had been meaning to contact her for years, having read so much of her work: not only about Freddie, but also about other artists. I was struck by her obvious pursuit of the truth, and by how closely she came to capturing ‘the real Freddie’.

Freddie Mercury with his Queen bandmates Roger Taylor, Brian May and John Deacon

‘Her book portrayed him more accurately than anything I had ever read. So much of what has been written and committed to film about him by so-called friends, lovers, employees and colleagues has been at best a gross distortion of the truth, at worst an exercise in exploitation.’

And so, the two women talked intensely for many months from late 2021. ‘Lesley-Ann and I continue to communicate to this day. Our long discussions have been very moving, at times unbearable and heartbreaking.

‘I revealed to her who my father was. I told her the truth about his childhood, his life, and everything that built the infant, the boy, the teenager, the young man, the grown man, the dad he was to me, the stage persona and the Mercury mask that he created. I explained to her how he compartmentalised his life, and of course talked at length about our precious time together.

‘The life I live with my husband and our family in another country is intensely private. We want things to stay that way. We cherish our peaceful and anonymous life, and we want nothing to disturb it. Nobody needs to know who I am.

‘I will have nothing more to say beyond what I have revealed in this book. There will be no further interviews other than those that I have given to Lesley-Ann. I owe it to my father to cherish privacy as one of the most precious privileges in life.

‘As he himself said, it was the thing he regretted giving away so readily. The one thing he wished that he could get back.’

• Love, Freddie by Lesley-Ann Jones is available to pre-order here.