Mary Austin, Freddie Mercury’s former fiancée who has spent years safeguarding his legacy: ‘Our love was much more powerful than I ever realized’

The background in the video call with Mary Austin, Freddie Mercury’s first partner, reveals little more than a white wall and an office chair. She is speaking, however, from Garden Lodge, the legendary west London home she inherited from the singer and which for many years resembled a museum: Japanese art collections, a garden that felt like a sanctuary, and the Yamaha grand piano on which the Queen frontman composed some of the most iconic songs of the 20th century.Austin has kind eyes and is introverted by nature. Since the release of the movie Bohemian Rhapsody in 2018, her face has become more familiar to the public, but she has given few interviews and made even fewer public appearances. She has devoted her life to preserving the memory of the “love of my life,” as she still calls Mercury, who left her his house and possessions after he died from AIDS in November 1991.She says that, at 75, she is in the “autumn years” of her life, with no major plans beyond “selling the house” where she has lived for more than three decades. She recently published A Life in Lyrics: The Official Creative Legacy of Freddie Mercury. The volume brings together original handwritten lyrics from some of the artist’s most celebrated songs, along with photographs and notes he left behind at his former home. Austin describes it as a tribute to Mercury’s legacy “as a lyricist and as a human being.” Had he lived, the artist would now be 80 years old.In 2022, Austin’s younger son, Jamie, suggested opening the storage compartment built into Freddie Mercury’s piano bench. Most of the material, however, had been discovered shortly beforehand, when Austin came across cassette tapes, folders stuffed with loose pages and handwritten lyrics to some of Queen’s biggest hits, including Bohemian Rhapsody, Killer Queen and Don’t Stop Me Now, in a trunk stored in the attic. The two discoveries were made only months apart.“I remember packing the trunk that contained the lyrics in 1985, when Freddie moved into Garden Lodge,” Austin says, narrowing her eyes as she recalls the moment. “When it was unpacked, it was taken up to the attic. And there it stayed. Seeing those papers again felt strange. It was a flurry of 21 years’ worth of memories and emotions encapsulated in a short space of time.”Freddie Bulsara, the name by which she still refers to him today (Bulsara being his birth surname), met Austin in the early months of 1970 at a house in Barnes, in southwest London. Over the following months, they crossed paths casually at the fashion boutique where she worked as a sales assistant, the same place where he first asked her out. From then on, they were inseparable.They lived together for almost eight years, during which Austin covered most of the household expenses. First they shared a tiny studio flat on Holland Road in west London, before moving into a larger apartment with their two cats and a piano that occupied a third of the living room.When asked if she ever felt overwhelmed by how much space Freddie took up in the house, Austin replies: “Never.”According to Austin, the sight was fascinating rather than intrusive: “It was strange to open the door and see this piano that seemed to come towards you and to see Freddie’s back. Whatever he was wearing, whatever color he wore would stand out against the dense black of the instrument.” During the singer’s long practice sessions, Austin liked to give him space while keeping some for herself. She would retreat to the bedroom to read, listening from afar to the melodies her partner was composing.A copy of The Lord of the Rings that Austin owned eventually found its way into Mercury’s hands. While she lost interest as the story grew darker, she believes Tolkien’s fantasy world awakened something in him and may have inspired My Fairy King.Asked what Mercury discovered or came to appreciate through her, Austin pauses for a moment. “Hopefully, himself,” she replies.During their relationship, which lasted from 1970 to 1977, Mercury wrote some of Queen’s defining songs, including Killer Queen (1974), Bohemian Rhapsody (1975), which Austin remembers him crafting “with solemn concentration,” Somebody to Love (1976) and We Are the Champions (1977).Throughout those years, Austin worked as his personal assistant. She recalls days that could stretch to 10 hours, spent coordinating tours and appointments, typing up song lyrics, looking after his cats, preparing his luggage and medical kit, and arranging special seating for concerts. In her book, she describes herself as Mercury’s right-hand woman, confidante and first line of support.They complemented each other despite their differences: Mercury was sociable, charismatic and born for the spotlight, while Austin always shunned public attention. But she also saw a much more reserved side to him. “The creative aspect of his character, who I describe as Freddie Bulsara, was very introverted, also when he composed. But at the same time he was wildly extroverted and I could also smile at the extravaganza,” she tells EL PAÍS.In A Life in Lyrics, Austin offers glimpses of their private life together. At times, she writes, Mercury became so absorbed at the piano that she assumed he had left the house. He would lose himself sketching early designs for Queen’s emblem, and before concerts he needed a few moments entirely alone. On one occasion, she recalls finding him standing motionless at the foot of a staircase, as still as a statue. Over time, however, the relationship began to cool. Austin remembers an exchange in a pub when someone asked Mercury whether he had ever written a song for the woman who later became his fiancée. He replied simply that Lily of the Valley was probably the closest example, offering no further explanation. Looking back, Austin sees particular significance in the song’s line, “But the lily of the valley doesn’t know.” Today, she regards it as strangely prophetic.In early 1977, Freddie told Mary that he was bisexual (though Austin argues in the book that he was in fact gay), bringing their romantic relationship to an end. Despite the breakup, they continued living together until Mercury bought her a nearby apartment. For a time, Austin considered moving on professionally as well. Remaining so closely involved in the life of her former fiancé was taking an emotional toll. She interviewed for a job at CBS and was offered the position, proof that she could imagine a future beyond one of rock’s biggest stars.Not long afterwards, however, she heard a Queen song while sitting in a cinema and found herself wondering whether a day would ever come when she stopped worrying about Mercury. The answer, she says, was no. She turned down the CBS job and remained by his side for another 14 years.“My journey is that of love itself, in a way, because normally you break up with somebody, you find someone else, and life takes you in a different direction,” she tells EL PAÍS. “Life hasn’t taken me in that direction. I realize he left me with a legacy. But that didn’t mean to say that I would be sitting here with you today. And yet I am here, which probably says to me that the love was much more powerful than I had ever realized.” Many fans have long assumed that Love of My Life (1975) was written about Austin. In her book, however, she is not so sure. She suggests that the song may have been directed more at Mercury himself, though she sees a clear connection between its closing sentiment and something he once told her during an ordinary conversation in the living room of their apartment: “When I grow old, I will be there at your side to remind you how I still love you.” From the very beginning, Austin kept a low profile. While Mercury moved among stars such as David Bowie and Michael Jackson, she never felt drawn to that world. “I wasn’t close to those people,” she says. “My role was sculpted by how much involvement I wanted. I didn’t want to be that involved within the music business. My role was specifically with Freddie and taking care of him.” Even now, she remains uncomfortable with the spotlight. “It just doesn’t suit my character,” she says. “I really don’t enjoy it at all. I realize now I’m 75 that I can afford to do this [the book] because I can disappear again and let Freddie have yet another part of his journey because he deserves it.” Why does she still insist on disappearing? “It’s like asking me to eat something I don’t want to eat,” she replies. “I don’t really find myself that interesting.”But surely she finds her own inner life interesting? “I find it fascinating, but I keep it to myself.”Austin attributes the decades she spent caring for Mercury to the role she occupied within her own family. “If you know anything about the eldest daughter, she is always the one that’s responsible. Hence my personality.” But there was never just one Freddie Mercury to look after. Over the years, she watched him transform repeatedly: from the bohemian, theatrical figure of the 1970s with his long hair, to the muscular performer in a black leather jacket and moustache, and finally to the more reflective, restrained and introspective man of his last years.But Austin did not spend those years caring for just one version of Mercury. Over the years, she watched him transform repeatedly: from the bohemian, theatrical figure of the 1970s with his long hair, to the muscular performer in a black leather jacket and moustache, and finally to the more reflective, restrained and introspective man of his last years.He was a meticulous lyricist. He jotted down song lyrics on any scrap of paper by hand: from napkins to stationery from the airline British Midland. Many were collected in ring binders and in the now-famous red notebook that Austin kept for more than three decades. Those manuscripts were eventually exhibited and auctioned by Sotheby’s in London in 2023. The Yamaha piano on which he composed many of his songs sold for £1.74 million ($2.2 million), with part of the proceeds donated to charity.After Mercury’s death in 1991, Austin moved into the memory-filled world of Garden Lodge. “The memories are very layered: finding the house, him living there, him having parties... Some not as happy as others, but nevertheless they’re all collective memories.” Beginning in 2024, she worked with a ghostwriter on what would become A Life in Lyrics, meeting twice a week for four-hour sessions. “They were intense sessions. After that work, I had lots of random dreams that seemed to merge together,” she says.Asked whether she still has any letters Mercury wrote to her, she thinks instead of something else he used to send: “He used to send cards from the United States and always, just at the end, write, ‘I miss you.’” A simple message that Austin always found “quite poignant,” a gesture that made her “feel loved.”Since her youth, she has been passionate about fashion and reading. She picks up whatever book catches her eye. She has just finished a four-novel crime series, enjoys Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, and feels a particular affinity with Agatha Christie. “I don’t know what next week or next month will bring, but I accept that I don’t know how much time I have left. I would very much like it to be about the love of my life... and how extraordinary he was,” she concludes. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition