The widower of Freddie Mercury‘s secret daughter Bibi has today vowed to release pictures of her with her father, and excerpts from the diaries he gave her.
Thomas, who announced her death at the age of 48 from a rare spinal cancer yesterday, says that Bibi had resolved during her last illness that she wanted to publish a picture memoir, with the proceeds going to charity, and says that he is planning to carry out her wishes.
He also told me, via email, that Bibi was greatly hurt by Mary Austin, the Queen singer’s one-time fiancé, and her attempts to spoil publication of the book and cast doubt on her story.
He said: ‘She was extremely affected by the words of Mrs. Austin and her lawyers and also by those of Mrs. Dobson (Anita Dobson, Brian May‘s wife).’
In fact he says his late wife’s view was that Mary knew perfectly well that Bibi was Freddie’s daughter but was lying in order to keep a promise she had made to Freddie Mercury, who died of pneumonia resulting from Aids in 1991.
He said: ‘She said that if her father had made Mrs. Austin promise not to reveal her existence, she would keep her word so as not to betray the promise she made to her father.
‘Every year since her 25th birthday, B has written to Mrs. Austin in March to wish her a happy birthday and every New Year. Her letters have always remained unanswered.
‘She didn’t send them to Garden Lodge, where fans send their letters, she sent them to Mrs. Austin’s business address in Logan Mews by tracked mail, she received them and she never responded. Despite this, she was still trying to make excuses for Mrs. Austin.’
Freddie Mercury’s secret daughter Bibi died just months after her existence was revealed in a bombshell book
Mary Austin, pictured, the love of Freddie’s life, allegedly denied knowing of B’s existence
Speaking about her picture memoir he said: ‘Her health began to fail this summer as we crossed the Andes Mountains (on a holiday).
‘She had decided in the last few months to gather the photos and excerpts from her father’s notebooks that supported what she had confided to Lesley Ann Jones in the book (Love, Freddie).
‘The goal was to publish these elements in the fall of 2027. I will respect her wishes. She said that 2026 would be nothing but a big circus in the exploitation of what would have been her father’s 80th birthday and the 35th anniversary of his death. She dedicated the last months of her life to preparing the book and to preparing what is now the legacy of her children.
‘It will be a book, a kind of photo album. My wife wanted all the proceeds from the sale of this photo album to be for the benefit of the pediatric oncology units.’
Bibi was a doctor working in France. The book Love, Freddie by author Lesley Ann Jones told how Freddie fathered a child with a married friend in 1976, and kept the child’s existence a closely guarded secret. She saw him in concert and would trace his tours with Queen on a globe he gave her.
The book is based on 17 volumes of journals given to ‘B’ by her late father.
In August, before Love, Freddie came out, Mercury’s former fiancée Mary Austin gave an interview to the Sunday Times insisting she would be ‘astonished’ if Freddie had a daughter.
She said she had no knowledge of such a child; and maintained that the star did not keep diaries, journals or notebooks.
Lesley Ann Jones said: ‘Her cancer reared originally when she was very young. It’s the real reason why the family relocated quite frequently, so that they could access the best treatment at the time for chordoma: a rare form of spinal cancer that was always going to kill her.
‘She had been in remission for some years when it reared again. That was when she decided to contact me. She had read my 2021 book about Freddie, Love of My Life.
Queen frontman Freddie Mercury was said to have had a close relationship with Bibi until his death in 1991, when she was 15
The revelation of Mercury’s secret child emerged in a bombshell biography of the star by bestselling music writer Lesley-Ann Jones, pictured, released in September
‘She emailed me to say that I had come closer to the real Freddie in that book than any previous writer or film maker – she particularly loathed Queen’s film Bohemian Rhapsody – but that there were ‘still some things I should know’.
‘We worked together for 4 years to get the book written and published – on borrowed time.
‘Last summer, towards the end of her life, she, her husband and two young children undertook an epic trip of a lifetime to South America.
‘Against the odds, she was able to get to the Inca ruins at Macchu Pichu, her ‘bucketlist’ destination. When they returned at summer’s end, she went straight into a treatment programme of 4 days in hospital for chemo, 3 days at home with her family. Our book was published on 5th September.’
B was married and had two children, aged nine and seven. They lived in France. In his email today Thomas wrote: ‘Her condition deteriorated rapidly in the very last days of December.
‘She passed on January 5 in the early morning, in her house in the South of France.
‘Her ashes were scattered over the Swiss Alps, near our Swiss home, for her to watch over her beloved children forever.’
Author Lesley Ann Jones said Freddie also called her his ‘trésor’ – French for treasure – and his ‘little froggie’.
The Queen songs ‘Bijou’ (jewel) and ‘Don’t Try So Hard’ were written about her, she said. The iconic singer had a close relationship with Bibi until his death in 1991.
Lesley-Ann Jones said the Queen frontman secretly fathered ‘Bibi’ during an affair in 1976 – and said last year that she has DNA evidence to back it up.
Bibi’s widower Thomas has pledged to release photos of her with Mercury (left) after the singer’s ex Mary Austin (right) cast doubt on the claims
Lesley said: ‘I am devastated by the loss of this woman who became my close friend, who had come to me with a selfless aim: to brush aside all those who have had free rein with Freddie’s story for 32 years, to challenge their lies and their rewriting of his life, and to deliver the truth.
‘At the end of her life, it was all that mattered to her. She was very ill throughout the 4 years that we worked together. But she was on a mission. She put herself and her own needs last.’
Ms Jones added: ‘She was devastated by (Freddie’s girlfriend) Mary Austin’s attempts to deny her existence, and her denunciation of the veracity of the book. Mary’s lawyers, Farrer & Co, were heavy-handed in their attempts to prevent publication. They tried everything. They failed. After the book was published, they never contacted us again. They couldn’t find anything in the book to sue us for. Love, Freddie is Freddie’s true story.
‘This news is shocking and deeply upsetting to me, but not surprising. I had known it was coming all along. It was a race against time. Against the odds, we achieved what at one time seemed impossible, given all that she was up against. It was the honour of my life to have been chosen by her to share Freddie’s true story.’
Ms Jones added that B had never wanted to go public with her identity because she was a doctor and risked ending her career and compromising her patients.
Before the publication of the book, Bibi released an emotional statement ahead of publication of a book about their relationship.
She said: ‘I didn’t want to share my Dad with the whole world.’
She added: ‘After his death, I had to learn to live with the attacks against him, the misrepresentations of him, and with the feeling that my Dad now belonged to everyone.
‘I cried and mourned my Dad, while fans all around the world mourned Freddie. When you are 15 years old, it’s not easy.
‘I had to become an adult without him, and live all the structuring moments and events without his support.
‘For 30 years I had to build my life and family without him and accept that he wouldn’t be there to share the happy moments with us. For 30 years, while the rest of the world was reinterpreting Mercury’s life, his music and all that he had been, I needed to have my Dad just for me and my family. How could I have spoken before?’
