Confess

by Rob Halford

I had a night in Athens before getting the boat to Mykonos, so I went to a gay bar I had read about. It was absolutely rammed, and I was having a drink in a corner when, just across from me, on the other side of the bar, I spotted . . . Freddie Mercury. It’s weird, but although Freddie was a hero, I had mixed feelings about him then. Queen had just had a big hit with ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, and in the video Freddie got off a motorbike, all in black leather, and threw his biker’s cap away. It had niggled me: was he ripping me off? I’d also read one or two interviews where Queen had been asked if they were a heavy metal band and Freddie had said they weren’t. It had bothered me. It sounds preposterous now, and it is, but those things were on my mind when I clocked him. Freddie saw me across the bar and gave me a wave and a wink. I’d have liked to go across to talk to him, but you couldn’t move in the bar and, if I am honest, I was nervous. By the time I got my courage up, he had gone.