Freddie Mercury and His Cats

If you’re a big Freddie Mercury fan, you probably already know how much the Queen singer adored his four-legged pets. And if you're just beginning to learn about the legend's personal life, this is just another reason to love him. The biopic Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) captures Mercury's doting cat dad moments, showing how at one point he even ended up living in a mansion filled with as many as 10 cats at a time. The film does give fans a good idea of how much cats meant to him, but it turns out that Freddie Mercury’s cats played an even larger role in his real life. In his memoir Mister Mercury, Mercury’s live-in personal assistant Peter Freestone wrote about how much the singer cared about his cats. “He’d get to a hotel, we’d dial through and he really would talk to his cats,” writes Freestone. “Mary [Austin] would hold Tom and Jerry in turn up to the receiver to listen to Freddie talking. This continued throughout the years with succeeding feline occupants of his houses.” In fact, Mercury dedicated his liner notes in his 1985 solo album Mr. Bad Guy specifically to Jerry, also mentioning the other cats. It reads, “This album is dedicated to my cat Jerry—also Tom, Oscar, and Tiffany and all the cat lovers across the universe—screw everybody else!” Mary Austin, who was Mercury’s girlfriend at the time, had bought him the pair of cats in the early ‘70s while they were together. According to The Telegraph, the pair remained close long after their romantic relationship...