When news that we have long been dreading lands, it is no less shocking. A heart that has been primed to break is still as fragile. The breath still catches. Blood pressure still soars. Tears fall as copiously as if the call had been a complete surprise.

Realisation that the end has come, that there will be no further interaction with the lost one, is every bit as wretched as if it had been a bolt from the blue. Grief gets under the skin.

It invades veins and seeps into bones, where it remains for life. The hurt, as many of us know to our cost, never leaves us. We don’t ‘get used’ to losing a loved one. We simply learn to live with the pain. 

During this morning’s early hours, I received a message I’d been expecting. Since the very first email that Freddie Mercury’s daughter wrote me, back in December 2021, I had been well aware that she was living on borrowed time.

She did not know how long she had left to do what she felt compelled to do. She had been simmering with rage since the release of Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen’s controversial 2018 feature film. Then she read my book Love of My Life, published in September 2021, and she knew what to do.

She reached out to thank me for the book, to reassure me that I had come closer to the real Freddie than any previous writer or film maker, then shared that there were still things I should know. She proceeded to impart unexpected new information.

Over time, as we got to know each other and she decided that she could trust me, she revealed that her incredible source was a collection of seventeen secret notebooks, handwritten by Freddie, that he had given her four months before his death in November 1991. Those journals told the story of his whole life.

For four years, she and I worked closely together to create a book, Love, Freddie, that was published on what would have been his 79th birthday, 5th September 2025.

The importance of privacy

I introduced Freddie’s daughter to the world as ‘B.’ because she was anxious that she must never to be traced or found. Privacy was of the utmost importance to her. Freddie had gone to great lengths to keep her hidden from the world for several reasons.

She had been born following a brief affair with the wife of one of his close friends. Both her mother and her husband - the man who was to become B.’s stepfather - were of aristocratic parentage and had wider families to protect from the fallout of the misdemeanour.

Freddie saw no reason why they should all be exposed to and damaged by his relentless rock superstar fame. He wanted his daughter to enjoy a secure, private childhood away from cameras and prying eyes. When she was old enough, he made her promise that she would always protect her privacy, no matter the cost.

It had been, he said, the thing that he had given away too easily. It was the only thing he wished with every fibre of his being that he could get back.

So ‘B.’ she was, throughout our friendship and our years-long correspondence. One day, she confided that Freddie’s name for her was ‘Bibi’, and also that he called her his ‘trésor’ - French for treasure – and his ‘little froggie’.

What prompted her to contact me in the first place? She had little time left to live. She was unable to determine how long exactly. The cancer that had afflicted her during childhood - the real reason for her family’s frequent relocations as they strove to avail themselves of the latest treatment programmes, moving often to be near particular specialists and hospitals - had reignited.

‘I have beaten it before,’ she said bravely, ‘and I intend with my whole being to beat it again.’

For all her kindness, compassion and unabashed spirituality, she was a steely, determined woman who gave and demanded brutal honesty, suffered no fools, put her family first, was enraged by the false narrative about her father that had mushroomed since Freddie’s death, and was determined to set his record straight before it was too late.

Rare form of cancer

Chordoma is a very rare form of cancer. Across Europe, only around six hundred cases are diagnosed each year. Although it tends to strike in mid-life, it can afflict people at any age. She had, as she pointed out, overcome it as a child, but had always known that it would return.

B.’s slow-growing tumour was at the base of her spine. Around fifty per cent of chordomas arise there, in the sacrum: the triangular bone at the spinal base. For years she had endured unbearable pain, suffered neurological disorders and put up with mobility issues and bowel complications.

She had undergone both surgery and radiation. During her final months, after the tumour had returned, she was subjected to regular and painful chemotherapy in hospital, returning home only at weekends.

Not only that. Advanced chordoma metastasizes, spreading to the lungs, liver, other bones, and reaching into the lymph nodes. There was no escaping the life-extinguishing disease.

Throughout, B.’s number one priority was always her family. Her husband Thomas, previously widowed, brought three sons from his first marriage to theirs. Together, they had two more sons, who are now only nine and seven.

Also still living with her when we first met was the most important woman in her life: her nanny Maria. Since the day she was born, Maria had cared for B. She had protected her, travelled with her and been glued to her side as they moved between Freddie’s private homes and other dwellings.

She had taken B. to Queen gigs, nursed her through illness, overseen her schoolwork, and had been there for her where her distant, detached mother had felt unable to be. B. looked after Maria as Maria had looked after her. She was devastated when the old lady died. In February 2023, she had written me this:

‘Maria was the person who first put me in Freddie’s arms, not long after I was born. There are things about my very early years that I know because I watched the videos and read his notebooks, but of which I have no memories of my own. She shared with me her experience of those events.

'For that and for many other reasons, she is very precious to me. She is now very elderly - 96 - and she has limited mobility. But she still has her sparkling eye, a sharp wit and a wonderful memory. She was a privileged witness, all those years. She witnessed almost everything about our situation even before my birth.

‘Later, when it came to organising my life, the relationship between Freddie, my mother and my stepfather, the comings and goings, the visits and phone calls, the subterfuges and strategies to prevent people from making connections between Freddie and me, the endless airports, the planes, hotels, cars, gigs, the interminable waiting on Freddie, her increasingly important role when my siblings were born, and of course later, with his illness – it all worked because of her: this precious woman who had worked for my stepfather’s family long before I was born.

'It was she who gave me love, attention and affection where my mother could not. She saw my own children born, and now she is watching them grow up. She is a real Italian mamma. Whenever she had something to say about me, everybody listened to her: Freddie, my stepfather and even my mother.’

By most people’s standards, B’s childhood was eccentric and unusual. Not only was she a rock star’s child, but she was a secret one, hidden from the world. Against the odds, she survived the loss of her father whom she had for less than fifteen years; studied long and hard and qualified as a medical professional; married and had her own family, and enjoyed what many would consider to have been a charmed life.

Are she, Freddie and nanny Maria, her mother and stepfather reunited now in the great somewhere? Here’s hoping.

Meanwhile, I shall miss her. she changed my life.

Read the news of BiBi's sad death in the Mail Online.

The Sun's story about the tragic end of Freddie Mercury's daughter.

Win a signed copy of 'Love, Freddie'

The tragic story behind Queen singer Freddie Mercury's unknown daughter has captivated the rock world.

Now here’s your chance to win a signed copy of the stunning new biography.

“Love, Freddie” has been one of the most talked-about rock music books of the year and author Lesley-Ann Jones is giving away three signed copies with this simple competition.

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