Author Lesley-Ann Jones has revealed Freddie Mercury's "secret daughter" may not legally own the diaries and notebooks on which her latest book Love, Freddie: Freddie Mercury's Secret Life and Love is based. The book details his relationship with a woman who claims to be his daughter, whose existence was unknown until recently. The iconic Queen frontman seemingly documented his life for the woman, known only as B, in a series of journals. Her full identity remains unknown, and speaking on GB News, Lesley-Ann explained part of the reason is that the treasured writings may not actually belong to her, but said she will "burn" them rather than let anyone else get their hands on them.
"For various reasons, there are some legal reasons...It's not entirely certain that she owns the notebooks because of clauses in his will. So she cannot go public, because she will then be found and challenged for the notebooks, and they are her most precious, treasured possession. She never will part with them. She said, I'll burn them rather than let anybody else have them," she explained.
Lesley-Ann's book, which launches on September 5, claims the child was unintentionally conceived during an affair with the wife of a close friend in 1976. Now 48, his alleged daughter resides in Europe, working in the medical field and is also a mother herself, making Freddie a grandfather.
The bestselling author, who has written several books about Freddie, including Freddie Mercury: The Definitive Biography in 1997, six years after his tragic death at the age of 45, confessed she thought it was a hoax akin to the Hitler Diaries when she was initially approached by the woman.
"We're old enough to remember the Hitler scandal. And the first email was 26,000 words long. I printed it out on 41 pages. Looked at it a bit, put it in my bag, went down to the little cafe, and kind of left it there, and then came back to it later.
"I kept reading it. The more I read it, the more I thought there might be something in this. So we struck up a dialogue."
Asked why the woman chose to entrust her with the information, Lesley explained: "She said that the book that I published on Freddie in September 2021, called Love of my Life, got closest to the real Freddie than any other writer had before. But she'd been meaning to contact me for years. She'd read everything (I'd written)."
The book is launching under a cloud of controversy as his former lover, Mary Austin, who inherited the bulk of his estate, has expressed her doubt about the veracity of the woman's claims.
"I've never known of any child, or of any diaries. If Freddie had indeed had a child without me knowing anything about it, that would be astonishing to me," she said.
"Freddie had a glorious openness, and I cannot imagine he would have wanted to, or been able to, keep such a joyful event a secret, either from me or other people closest to him," she added in an interview with The Times.
