#joefanelli

Dear Freddie Mercury,

With hair as black as night and eyes as brown and tempting as the sweetest chocolate.

The voice of the angels with a little bit of mischief blended in.

Shoulders that helped you stand tall and show the confidence you had.

A chest that you displayed proudly and that helped you be heard by all.

Legs that went on for days and never stopped taunting us whether covered or not.

A body so naturally musical you moved to any beat on pure instinct-a human metronome.

Feet that moved with the grace of a swan, that many have tried but never achieved.

Arms that made anyone do what you wanted without hesitation even once for a short time controlling the entire world.

Charisma that exploded from your body like the brightest sunlight.

Energy that could power a thousand cities.

Stamina that could only have come from the gods.

Sex appeal that proved you could give us grounds for divorce and sell us your body which was some good merchandise!

A smile that lit a room brighter than any bulb.

A laugh that soothed our souls with every second it lasted.

The artistic mind of a genius that never stopped creating songs that changed the world.

A heart that was completely possessed by love and although wounded never gave up on finding that perfect somebody to love.

The wit that gave us the most unforgettable quotes that are still as endearing today as they ever were.

“I’m just a musical prostitute, my dear.”

The talent for writing and playing and singing and entertaining that,no one but you, could channel so well.

The love for life that taught us all to make ours fabulous.

The example you gave us of how life should be lived in excess in all directions.

The courage of a gladiator afraid of nothing.

The work you put in every single performance, song, or rhapsody; striving for, and nearly achieving perfection.

The mere 20 minutes that made you immortal and showed the world your true awe-inspiring talent that had all past critics running scared and from that day forward unable to deny your most high place in music.

The last words to your fans telling us you will always love us, that we knew you truly meant.

That even when deathly ill never losing an ounce of dignity even singing the perfect eulogy and your unwavering belief that the show must go on. You faced it with a grin and you never gave in.

These and tons more traits make up the man, the myth, and ultimately the legend that is you, Freddie.

Freddie Mercury who was and remains, truly great and undoubtedly the stuff of legend.

When someone truly great leaves this world it’s forever a little bit darker. A man who gave the world so much in a short 45 years that a dozen people couldn’t give in 100.

If Elvis is the king of rock then Freddie, my darling, you are the King of Music.

Remembering you is easy we do it everyday but missing you is a heartache that never goes away.

We grieve even so long after you’ve been gone, not because we knew you but because you helped us learn to know and love ourselves.

They say legends never die and you will forever live in the hearts of many generations as long as music can be heard.

Thank you, for making us laugh, and cry and feel like we could fly!

Your mere existence made the world a spectacular place and then add all the things above and you have the very definition of immortality. A quality that very few people in the history of the world earned,!much less deserved, and you wore it proudly and humbly, almost as if wearing a crown.

To quote another legend named Paul, “King Mercury” forever May he reign.

Love,

I have 4,053 photos on my iPhone and 4000 of them are of or about Queen or Freddie Mercury.

-Jim didn’t know who Freddie really was until Live Aid. To him it was a sexy guy from a bar who sang.

-Jim saw Garden Lodge it wasn’t a secret how much money Freddie had. So a gold digger would move right on in.

-He kept an apartment of his own for months while they were dating and if Freddie got up to his tricks as he had with other lovers, Jim had it to go back to. A gold digger wouldn’t keep an apartment if he wasn’t being treated well, he would ignore the behavior and continue sucking money.

-Jim kept his job as a hairdresser when the man he’d been dating seriously for several months could easily afford to “keep” him. A gold digger would stop working and live off his lover much like a lot Freddie’s past lovers did.

-Freddie asked him to move in and Jim hesitated. A true gold digger would jump at the chance. He would also have started flaking off at work staying with his wealthy boyfriend in Germany instead of being at a job. And have zero guilt or need to think about it. A true gold digger would be in that house in record time.

-Jim turned Freddie down cold the first time he asked and didn’t call him after their “one night stand”. After he saw all the nice things Freddie had and the influence he had over people that first night and a gold digger would be calling like crazy and trying to get the rich person’s attention, doesn’t sound to me like he was chomping at the bit to get his hands on Freddie and his money.

-Freddie to the best of his knowledge and ours was well for almost two years when he was seeing Jim. Freddie was a very good judge of character and knew when people used him though as long as he got something out of it he wouldn’t mind for a while. Does anyone really think that Jim an Irish hairdresser from a tiny town could pull the wool over the eyes of one of the worlds biggest rockstars. He’d have to be an Oscar-worthy actor or an amazing con man. Which let’s face it. That’s just fucking stupid. If you are saying that, you are calling Freddie gullible which he never was; not ever.

-when he did move into Garden Lodge he worked religiously in the garden. It wasn’t called Garden Lodge because there were a few leaves to rake it is one of the biggest pieces of land and garden in London that’s residential. Peter Freestone says repeatedly that Jim worked very hard. As does everyone else in Freddie’s life.

-Peter Freestone knew Jim before he ever knew Freddie and was happy to see Freddie with an honest kind man. Doesn’t sound much like a gold digger to me.

-Every friend or ex of Jim Hutton repeatedly defended him to other people when they would gossip or talk bad about him, so that goes to show his character was of a kind person who didn’t breed much resentment in anyone who knew him.

-All of Freddie’s friends have said that Jim was a good guy. Including Terry Giddings Freddie’s driver, Peter Freestone and the NY daughters. Freddie is dead. Jim is dead. Not one of The people that knew Freddie even up until present day have recanted their good words about Jim. They have no reason to keep up a “lie”

-Jim wasn’t interested in the house he was interested in how he was being treated. From the reaction of all the GL residents they had no clue about the money Freddie would leave them until the Will was read after Freddie died. If they did expect something I know it wasn’t as much as they actually got. Especially Jim who was constantly witnessed begging Freddie to stop buying him expensive things. Yeah, that screams gold digger. Pfft!

-Joe Fanelli did not mess around he didn’t care about hurting people’s feelings especially when it came to Freddie. If Jim had been the leech all these people say, then you can bet your ass he would have said something to him especially when Freddie was too weak or ill to defend himself.

-Jim when he did leave GL took the things Freddie had wanted him to have and he wanted a cat! I mean come on a cat doesn’t come with a trust fund ffs. The stuff he did end up with he gave to be sold to raise funds for the MPT such as the Yellow Wembley jacket. Never in his lifetime did you ever see the original lyrics to BoRhap on the auction block. Their whereabouts are still unknown I think. So they weren’t auctioned off for millions.

-Jim submitted an application for a mortgage for the land in Ireland in his own name and didn’t even use Freddie as a reference in the application. Then when he had to ask for the money, Freddie gave him way more than he had asked for. The land was small plot near his mom. A gold digger would’ve bought a farm that was worth a fortune in England. Not a house next to his mom in nowhere Ireland.

-At the bar Jim frequented while he lived with Freddie he had barely mentioned he was dating Freddie and not many believed him until after he died. Freddie was never paraded around to impress anyone or anything that Freddie bought him flaunted.

-He invited his ex boyfriend, who actually DID know who Freddie was, to a party and the fight they had was because of the cold shoulder Freddie gave Jim’s friend. Not because he didn’t buy him anything or refuse to pay attention to him.

-After a vase went missing Jim didn’t tell Freddie that it didn’t matter because he could afford it. He let the fight continue for several weeks as Jim turned the house upside down looking for it. Then finally frustrated had to wait until FREDDIE let it go.

-Jim didn’t seek any media attention and never once complained when he was replaced with Mary at events. A gold digger would want to show off and flaunt their money and their source of money.

-Phoebe was a huge protector of Freddie’s and had said he was not a fan of Paul Prenter due to the way he betrayed Freddie and how he’d seen it coming. Why then would you think that almost a decade after Jim died would he hesitate to tell people that Jim was after Freddie’s money if this was even remotely true?

-Even the other members of Queen recognized how uninterested Jim was in fame and fortune. They also liked Jim and as history has proven if someone was horrible to Freddie they wouldn’t be friends with them or if forced simply polite. They hated Paul Prenter. They really didn’t know much about Winnie and the absolutely hated Bill Reid, yet they were friends with someone who was using Freddie for his money? That doesn’t seem right. Hmm

-Jim lived with his “husband” in that house for almost seven years. It was a home that they made together and all the contributions Jim made were made by him and not bought on Freddie’s dime.

-Jim did not parade around in the expensive cars Freddie owned and when he did get his license he got a VOLVO. Not a Ferrari or Aston Martin which Freddie easily could have afforded.

-Jim was there when Freddie gave him an easy out. I mean if you know that your boyfriend had given you a deadly disease the gold digger would turn and run and ask for money to leave. Including extorting the rich person for money with the threat of the biggest secret Freddie didn’t want anyone to know getting out. Jim stayed when an gold digger would have run! Trust me that is not greed.

-If you have ever cared for anyone who was dying from a very deadly disease you will know it’s basically one of the hardest things that anyone whether they love the ill person or not, could do and it’s very hard on the caregivers. Jim was a huge help to Peter and Joe sacrificing his own comfort many times to be with him.

-Jim could have run when things got hard and asked Freddie for money which Freddie would have given. Instead, Jim watched the man he loved and lived with slowly suffer and wither from being the flamboyant sexy and unbelievably vibrant man he had fallen for, into a shell of himself. AIDS in particular is one of the worst diseases to witness anyone die of including strangers. There’s no way any amount money can make you do that to the very end.

-When Freddie died he wasn’t even that rich (in rich people terms at least) nowhere near what he would be later, and Jim obviously knew nothing about property value in London or how much things cost other than reasonable or expensive. A man out for money driven by greed would know those things. And would have mentioned being left the house n a daily basis for the entire relationship. There is not one mention of Jim ever doing that.

-Jim had just lost the person he saw everyday for seven years and less than a week after the love of his life died before he knew about any money, that he wouldn’t even have access to for a while. Will’s are extremely tricky and nothing is immediate including any money received from the Will. It has to go through a system of court proceedings. He was also devastated at losing the one person he had loved more than anything and he had lived with for almost 7 years. Every inch of that house dripped with memories and those can be either comforting or completely hard to relive. There’s are stages of grief and they take time. One week is not nearly enough to even let the death sink in. Staying and remembering is often the only comfort in those times.

-Mary let them live in the guest house one to which all except Phoebe had never lived in before and were exactly what they are, “guest”quarters. Jim was not a “guest” in Freddie’s life. Also, Guards were posted in the house with explicit instructions to let no one in to any part of the house without either being scheduled or having been granted permission. Including the garden Jim had worked so hard to maintain. What the hell could he have stolen in the garden? Have you ever gardened it’s a LOT of work in heat and snow and takes a lot of physical toil. Jim didn’t care he did the job when instead he could have just lounged around the house being waited on hand and foot. A place you live with someone you love has a lot of importance in the grieving process and it takes they say about half the amount of time that you lived there with the person for you to start to move forward. Half of seven years is 3 and a half YEARS not 1 week or 3 months. You become a widow or widower and report back if I’m wrong.

-when Freddie just died, after the shock and grief of his fans had waned a bit, about a year later, a lot of Queen was only a memory and wasn’t as beloved as they are now. They kind of went dormant. Unless you were a lifelong, die hard fan people were at least a little bit less grieving than they had when Freddie died. So the timing of this gold digger’s book is really odd.

-Jim wrote the book in 1993. Made in Heaven hadn’t come out yet and the Queen renaissance hadn’t even started gaining momentum yet. In its first printing the book didn’t even sell that well. Jim shared all profits with the publisher and Tim Whapshott as well so it wasn’t exactly a cash cow at least not in England. He went on tv for about 10 minutes promoting it and on shows in countries that had a lot more going on than finding things out about a recently dead rockstar, such as civil war in Czechoslovakia for example, so I highly doubt it was selling out in bookstores.

-Until much later close to the end of Jim’s life Freddie’s Legend status hadn’t been cemented quite yet. The band was popular but nowhere close to what they are today. Jim left all profits of the book to the hospital where he was treated for cancer. That doesn’t sound much like the actions of a gold digger.

-When George Michael died he left his boyfriend at the time very little compared to what he actually was worth but way way more than Freddie left Jim. George’s boyfriend published a tell all novel with explicit details of their love life and not one thing was held back and he did it super soon after George’s death even saying George would pay for not leaving him money. Which happened! and for a while the reputation of George Michael was poison for anyone to touch. Things have changed now but that book was as written out of spite. Jim’s was written to cope with grief.

-Jim talked about a few details of his love life with Freddie, but has everyone forgotten that Freddie himself was way more descriptive of sexual things than anything Jim even talked about. Ffs he told the press he had an insatiable sexual appetite and certainly didn’t hide the fact he had “a lot of sex” from the public.

-Yes, it’s horrible to read about the horrible affect that disease had on Freddie’s body and Jim recounted what was truly important not anything super embarrassing. So he wet the bed and he changed his shorts, big deal. That says nothing bad about Freddie! It just proves how awful and horrible the way AIDS kills and in the most painful way. That way anyone who had any doubt that it was horrible didn’t after Jim’s book. Awareness was still a hard topic to get into people’s heads in 1993. It had just started becoming a widely known disease since Magic Johnson announced his positive status in 1992.

-Jim was still upset with the situation and when that book was published, yes admittedly, he sounds a bit bitter in the end because what happened after he lost the love of his life was still a new wound.

-If Jim wanted to make “real” money he could have gone to another more well-known source to write the book and he could have gone into very explicit detail as to how Freddie Mercury was as a lover. But he treated it as respectfully as he could. Leaving it out would have left out a huge part of their relationship. That book wasn’t a enormous money maker until recently. Some of Freddie’s friends have described things about Freddie’s life in much more detail than Jim did. Also, Jim never had anything bad to say about him in any public appearances, he did for documentaries, or any time he was asked for a quote about Freddie. It would be very easy for a gold digger to divulge details that would disparage the legend of Freddie but Jim loved him and he didn’t become a multimillionaire at any point in his life so how exactly is he a gold digger?

-yes he wrote in his book about the house and how he felt it was partly his etc... but you didn’t see him hiring lawyers to take Mary to court or even consulting with one, about that. He took the knocks and tried to move on. A gold digger would fight tooth and nail to get any money they could. There are countless examples of these things

-My last point is kind of a repeat of the beginning of this long ass essay. Jim Hutton died almost a decade ago, Freddie has been gone for almost 30 years. Any gag orders or promises to keep secrets has long since expired. If Jim was truly a gold digging leech someone who knew the both of them first hand would have SAID SOMETHING! The only people who say these things are fans. Anyone who was a friend of Freddie’s has never said anything like that against Jim and all loyalties would have been lost by now. People would have cashed in on the Jim Hutton the digger story, by now. But no one has. There’s only one explanation for the reason it hasn’t happened.

IT WASN’T TRUE!

Mary: Freddie, hey Freddie, FREDDIE, you did leave me all your money and your house in your will right like you promised me a million years ago? Don’t forget!? *reminds him every day*

Jim: Can I just take the lucky clover and my Volvo and maybe the newest kitten?

Mary: This kitten must stay in Garden Lodge because it’s part of the “everything” Freddie left me.

Jim: ok so car?

Mary: fight me bitch

Jim: lucky clover?

Mary: Not sure let me see how much it might get in auction but you can’t have the kitten *one month later* ahhh too many cats anyone want this kitten for free?

Jim: I just want to see the garden one last time.

Mary: no, you might take some dirt. Get out. And I WIN!

Jim: Ok I miss Freddie

Allow me to enlighten you:

I only became a die hard Queen and Freddie fan a little over 2 years ago. The music (most of it anyway) was new. With a catalog of 150 or more songs I was discovering a new favorite band.

I’ve been mourning his death for as long as I’ve been a die hard fan. For those of us who caught the Queen fan bug just recently to us the heartbreak is brand new. We cry because WE haven’t been mourning for 28 years.

Freddie appeals to some trait in every fan. They see things in him and his life that they relate to and admire. We all wanna be like Freddie in some way and to have that man that you so relate to be gone from this earth before you got the chance to see him in person is heartbreaking to say the very least.

Freddie was love in human form. You felt the love coming from whatever medium he was heard on. His charisma and true goodness jumps into your soul no matter what is happening in your life. He is the only thing that can make me smile so wide even in times of great strife.

Though he pretended to be arrogant he was the very definition of kindness and generosity both in material things and in spirit. Charisma to me is love that shines from every part of you and Freddie had it in abundance.

He reminds me to live my life and make it good because it could be short just make it fabulous.

I have learned so much about music from him and the band. The importance of the previously misunderstood bass guitar. The skill in all things musical that one can have and a voice that could sing about a Dragon Attack and calling you a Liar to one that makes you wonder when your next sports event is to a song so anthemic and heartbreaking that you fight back your tears. Then says something witty on stage that makes you laugh.

The most interesting stories surface. He did more interesting things in a short time that it makes you wanna check things off your bucket list.

He inspires you to believe you can be anyone or anything you want imperfections and all.

This is a band that I can say pretty confidently you’d see how much your attendance at a concert meant no matter how many were crammed in with you and you felt l8ke you were the fifth member during every live performance. They never ever let you down unlike just about every musician these days.

Every time Freddie’s light starts to fade a whole new generation discovers him. His life s a mystery we have just a surface view of from other people who actually knew him.

He’s never truly dead until his name isn’t spoken. It will be a long time before that happens as parents pass great music.

He was literally one of the world’s best singers that ever lived. He inspires me and makes me smile and trust me that’s hard to do on many but me more than anyone

He lived a Disney fairytale with Jim Hutton until it all ended like a Greek tragedy. Their love story helps you believe in love when some of us have and still are looking for any love at all.

I still miss him and ask me again in another 20 years.

To be continued add your thoughts Kthnxbye

He gave me a new hobby.

Everyday he helps me fight my depression by getting my butt out of bed and making me resist dancing in the shower.

I don’t have to worry about what I will listen to in the car.

He made me believe that some 80’s fashion wasn’t completely horrible.

I have a new love for arrows on clothes and army strapped jackets.

He made me love chest hair which is hard to imagine for me. (Tbc)

A man that could tell an audience Fuck You and get applause.