After his death on November 24, 1991, Freddie gave his home, 50 percent of his recording royalties and most of his wealth to Mary Austin, with the remainder going to his parents and sister. Mary was Freddie's closest friend throughout his life, and they were often seen out together before his illness.
Freddie signed a will in September 1991, that gave half of his vast wealth to Mary and the rest to his parents and sister. Most of his friends, including lover Jim Hutton, were given £500,000 each or a house. Mary was Freddie's bedside holding his hand when he passed away at the age of 45.
Now the huge success of the movie about the band Queen will see Mary Austin, the former fiancee of lead singer Freddie Mercury, scoop around $75million in royalties. She met Mercury in 1970 when she was a 19-year-old art student and they moved in together before he was famous.
Currently, Queen's catalogue is owned by Disney Music Group which purchased the rights for a reported $10 million in 1991. Speaking with CNN, a source close to the acquisition revealed that the discussions were “well underway” and the deal would be finalised “within one month.”
Yes! He receives: authorship royalties. A part of the distribution rights royalties (because of his co-ownership of Queen Ltd.)
Brian May – US$210 million
Coming in at No 1, the richest Queen member is guitarist (and astrophysicist!) Brian May.
The sovereign grant was set at £86.3m for 2021-22, according to the royal household's annual financial statement, which it said represented £1.29 per person in the UK. Prior to 2017, the Queen received 15% of the crown estate profits from the two previous years, while the remainder was kept by the government.
He was devastated by her decision, he said. However, Mercury did leave him with £500,000 (nearly $1 million, per the 1991 conversion rate), which he used to move back to Ireland. He also wrote a book about their relationship, simply titled Mercury and Me. Hutton died on January 1, 2010, after a long battle with cancer.
Three years after Freddie's death, Jim published a book about his time with the singer titled Mercury and Me. He worked as Freddie's gardener after moving into the singer's Kensington mansion, and preferred to stay away from the rock and roll lifestyle.
But despite all that, Queen member Brian May claims the band hasn't seen any of the profits. “We thought it would do well in the end, we felt good about it, but we didn't realize it would do that well,” May said in a recent interview on BBC Radio 2's The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show. “It's incredible around the world.
With his farewell look straight at the camera as the song ends, Mercury whispers "I still love you", directed to his fans, which are his last words on camera. Director of the video Rudi Dolezal comments, "AIDS was never a topic. We never discussed it. He didn't want to talk about it.
His father Bomi attended Freddie's funeral after his sad death from bronchial pneumonia, and the small family moved up to Nottingham away from London to be out of the spotlight.
Rami himself has revealed that he is lip-syncing, but it's not just Freddie's voice that we hear. "It is an amalgamation of a few voices," he told the Metro US. "But predominantly it is my hope and the hope of everyone that we will hear as much Freddie as possible. I think that is the goal for all of us."
Only one successor member can be appointed to receive the royalties for the deceased writer's musical works. Generally, this is the beneficiary (or one of the beneficiaries) entitled to those Royalties under the will or intestacy rules applicable to the Estate.
"I wasn't too surprised by the success of the movie, because the subjects of the movie are Freddie Mercury, together with Queen and their music," said Kashmira, who has lived in Nottingham for more than three decades.
Jim Hutton, a "handsome and charismatic Irishman," worked as a hairdresser in London before meeting the music icon and becoming his lover. Jim Hutton met the Queen singer in a gay nightclub named Heaven in March 1985. The duo would go on to spend the remaining seven years of Mercury's life together.
It's been 28 years since Freddie Mercury died, but fascination about the flamboyant Queen frontman still rages on. Freddie was just 45 when he took his last breath at Garden Lodge, the high-walled mansion in London's fashionable Kensington where he lived with his life partner and 'husband' Jim Hutton.
The guests included the star's bandmates and their wives, as well as Elton John, Mary Austin and Freddie's partner Jim Hutton.
On June 2, 1979, Hutton died of liver cancer, two days after his 45th birthday, and a month after being diagnosed.
This story is real. Best Picture nominee Bohemian Rhapsody is a true story based on the life of singer Freddie Mercury. That said, it does take some liberties with the story, simplifying many aspects to keep the story moving and to make it a bit more flashy.
It was doubtless a grand and sweeping flippant comment Freddie would make to Jim but had no intention of ever making a reality. Freddie had always intended only one person to receive the bulk of his estate. He explicitly said so in an interview years before and never changed his mind.
We do not pay the Queen any money for her upkeep or even for her duties as Queen of Australia. We do pay a salary to the Governor-General and pay for the upkeep for the official residences.
The net worth of the British royal family is estimated at $28 billion (£21.3 billion), according to Forbes. Queen Elizabeth II had a separate personal fortune of $500 million (£380.7 million), inherited by her son King Charles, according to Forbes.
Taking her many streams of income into account, the Queen earned a generous salary each year until her death According to the Evening Standard, this looked like an estimated $97.2 million in yearly income for Her Majesty in 2020.