#truly goals ammirite

[vivephim]

(lovelorn sigh) domesticisizhiszm....

[obsessivelollipoplalala]

Submission

Hey there, long time no see!

I've been dipping in and out of Tumblr the last couple of weeks and have been keeping up with all your interesting discussions with anons (sorry, stalkerish I know, but I find it both insightful and entertaining.) I couldn't help but notice @just-a-poor-boy-queen posted about our good old friend on Instagram spouting her usual bullshit, only this time she apparently has proof that her claims are real from Lying Ass Jerkoff , sorry, Lesley Ann Jones' latest book. According to her, as you already know, she claims that Lesley denounces Jim and Freddie's relationship and Jim apparently confessed to her that he never loved Freddie, that he used him for fame, etc. etc.

Which is...very interesting. Because LAJ's biography, Bohemian Rhapsody, claims the exact opposite.

While I was out in town today, I visited my local bookstore and unintentionally stumbled across the book in the biography section. My first instinct was to ignore it - I know for a fact it's trash - but curiosity got the better of me and I ended up having a flip through.

First off, the amount of stuff she gets wrong is hilarious. Some of them were minute errors, others the average Queen fan could tell you is fake. I'm pretty sure she talked about Freddie taking Princess Diana out in drag and the party with the midgets carrying bowls of cocaine on their heads, which we know never happened. There was also a picture of Freddie and Mary (one where Freddie is leaning on Mary while she's smoking a cigarette,) that was captioned "the happy couple relaxing together," which made me laugh out loud because it was allegedly taken in 1975 when Freddie was dating David behind Mary's back. Relationship goals, ammirite?

And don't get me started on the Barbara stuff, I stg, LAJ seems low-key obsessed with her.

Anyway, I ended up skipping to the end where she talks about Jim; she does indeed claim that she stayed with him in Carlow (not sure what year,) and that she interviewed him while she was there. This is what she had to say:

On Jim's motivation for writing M&M: (Jones) "Jim Hutton later explained that it was anger, not money, that prompted him to write his memoir. He wanted the world to know the truth, and could see no other way."

(Jones) "There is no doubt that Jim, the bereft lover, embarked upon his selective 1994 biography with the intention of creating a tender tribute to an adored partner. This was blurred by a co-writer who dwelled more on sensational aspects of the relationship, as well as on intimate details of Freddie's final days."

(Jones) "Given Jim's Catholic background, and the fact that his mother was still alive when he published, it must have taken immense courage to write the book."

About the GL boys being erased by Jim Beach: (Jim) "I think Jim Beach was angry that my book ruined the myth of Freddie. All it did was return him to his original status of a human being. It told the truth. Beach wanted fans to believe that sweet Mary Austin was the love of Freddie's life, and what a great, tragic, romantic tale it all was."

(Jones) "Jim was consequently banished from the Queen camp." (She goes on to explain it's likely because everyone was grieving, but I don't buy it.)

(Jones) "Freddie's will raised countless questions, some of which would never be resolved." (I thought this was interesting, given that I've seen speculation that Freddie might have been influenced over what to put in his will before.)

On Dave Clark: (Jones) "The press reported that Dave Clark had said he was the only person in the bedroom when Freddie died. 'He was not the only person in the room,' Jim stated. 'But it was quoted all over the place.' The error must have been perturbed the sensitive and caring Clark, for on his birthday, Jim received a beautiful card from him. 'The inscription he wrote inside read "you were there.' " (Jim goes on to recount the exact same version of events written in Mercury & Me about Freddie's death. He speaks highly of Clark, saying he was brilliant when Freddie was ill and would sit with him for hours. Jim seems more angry at the press spreading lies than at Dave himself. I've seen people argue that Dave was the one spreading the rumours to the paper or he did nothing to refute them, but who knows, perhaps he was a victim of the tabloids too.)

Phoebe testifying to Jim's character: (Phoebe) "Those concerned have to live with themselves. Mary once said of Jim that he had 'a very vivid imagination.' I knew Jim a very long time, and never knew him to be anything other than totally honest. Jim's conscience, like mine, will always be clear." (Given how Phoebe now makes a point of saying that Jim "exaggerated" stuff in his book, I find this a tad hypocritical. Still, I appreciate him sticking up for Jim and saying that those who are trying to change Freddie's legacy will have to live with that on their conscience. Also, fuck you Mary, if you did say that about Jim.)

On Jim's love for Freddie: (Jones) "There are still times when I can be pottering around in the garden, and Freddie's facial expression when he died will come into my mind," he told me in Ireland, "I can blank out what happened consciously but not subconsciously. It is impossible to forget. I learned so much from him, not least a positive outlook. Freddie's attitude was always, 'But you can, don't you see? You can do it. Put your mind to it, you'll see what you can do' That was one of the loveliest things about him."

(Jones) "During the time I spent with Jim in picturesque County Carlow, there was no doubt that the love Jim claimed to have felt for Freddie was genuine. He was a warm and decent man who was content with his lot. He was eternally grateful, he told me, for having experienced the superstar lifestyle through Freddie."

(Jones) "Jim would never truly recover from the loss."

I took screenshots of all the quotes above, which I'm happy to submit if anyone is interested. I would love to have seen what else she said about Jim, but taking pictures of book pages in the middle of a shop isn't the best look, so I kept it brief. 

So, overall, Lesley seems to have a very high opinion of Jim, and believed the love between he and Freddie was genuine. Which is quite surprising, given that she downplays all of Freddie's other relationships with men in favour of promoting his fictional "romance" with Miss Valentin. Of course, this could all be complete bullshit and she never met Jim at all, but if she is telling the truth for once in her life, then she's one of few biographers who was very much supportive of Jimercury.

As one of the anons correctly stated, we have two possible scenarios.

A) If crazy lady is telling the truth, and Jones does make all these negative claims about Jim in her new book, then she was either lying in Bohemian Rhapsody or she's lying now in her latest cash cow. In this scenario, she's a liar either way. But tell us something we don't know.

B) Crazy Lady is pretending to have read the book, or read it and was angry there was nothing bad about Jim, and is fabricating quotes to suit her anti-Jim agenda, knowing her thick-as-bricks followers will just take her word for it and not bother looking for evidence. This is the most likely scenario. 

I know most people with a brain know not to trust the word of either of these women, but I thought it would be fun to dismantle some of Insta lady's claims regardless, in case there was anyone out there having doubts.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

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Hi there! It's good to see you again.

This...is a lot to think about lol. Since LAJ is such a liar, it's hard to believe she really sat down with Jim, or that most of what she said was from primary sources. However, it is strange that she spoke so highly of Jim given...everything else she's ever said lol. The quotes above do fit with what other people have said about Jim and Garden Lodge as a whole, though. It's very strange because it's either she decided to be factual with this, or lie about getting these quotes but decide to stick up for Jim, anyway. Weird, weird, weird.

It's really hard to know who's lying in the new book, LAJ or the hater lady. They're both so unreliable. It does seem too convenient that what LAJ supposedly says lines up with the hater lady rhetoric, but idk. Apparently LAJ blocked the hater lady on twitter, too lmao. So maybe it's the hater lady who's lying? But I can believe LAJ suddenly changing her tune, too.

I don't know. Thank you for sharing this information. I have more questions than answers now lol but still