Episode #286 | 9.8.26
Queen: Will the Real Freddie Mercury Please Stand Up?
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In this episode
Queen are one of the biggest-selling bands in music history, and Bohemian Rhapsody is one of the highest-grossing biopics of all time. But did the movie give us a true portrait of Freddie Mercury – or is the real story so debauched, so insane, that it borders on unbelievable?.
Sources
Queen: The Ultimate Illustrated History of the Crown Kings of Rock, by Phil Sutcliffe
‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Actually Gets a Lot Wrong About Freddie Mercury & Queen (Ranker)
How Queen and Freddie Mercury threw the wildest album release party of all time (Far Out)
Obvious History: Freddie Mercury’s Saturday Night in Sodom (Interview Magazine)
Queen: “It was all like a fantasy to see how far we could go” (UNCUT)
A New Documentary Examines a Once Reviled ’80s Gay Thriller (NY Times)
Murderer of a Writer Is Implicated in Cases Of Unsolved Slayings (NY Times)
Searching for the Truth About the Actual Murderer in The Exorcist (Esquire)
Mineshaft (NYC LGBTQ Historic Sites Project)
Sacha Baron Cohen: I quit Freddie Mercury biopic after dispute with Queen (The Guardian)
Bohemian Rhapsody True Story Explained - Queen Movie Fact Check (Esquire)
How the '70s "Castro Clone” Look Paved the Way for the Queer Clothing of Today (GQ)
‘Michael’ Pulls Further Ahead of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ as Top-Grossing Music Biopic Worldwide: See the Top 25 (Billboard)
Wally Wallace Tells All About the Mineshaft (Jack Fritscher)
Bohemian Rhapsody fact vs. fiction: What’s true in the Freddie Mercury movie. (Slate)
About That Time Princess Diana Watched The Golden Girls and Crashed a Gay Bar with Freddie Mercury (Vanity Fair)
‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ at 50! Brian May and Roger Taylor on Queen’s Masterpiece (Rolling Stone)
Queen Holds Court in South America (Rolling Stone)
Queen's 'News of the World': 10 Things You Didn't Know (Rolling Stone)
Did Princess Diana Spend a Night Out in Drag With Freddie Mercury? (Vanity Fair)
Brian May responds to Bohemian Rhapsody critics: “We weren’t making a documentary” (Louder)
Bohemian Rhapsody: Rami Malek Reveals What Queen Thought of His Freddie Mercury (Vanity Fair)
Credits
Hosted by Jake Brennan.
Written by Zeth Lundy.
Copy edited by James Sullivan.
Mixed by Matt Beaudoin.
Produced in partnership with the Exactly Right Network and iHeartPodcasts.
DISGRACELAND theme song, “Crenshaw Space Boogie,” written and produced by Jake Brennan. Performed by Jake Brennan, Bryce Kanzer, Jay Cannava, and Evan Kenney. Mixed and engineered by Adam Taylor.
*illustrations by Avi Spivak @avispivak