Freddie Mercury’s ex has failed in her bid to sell his £30m London home – after putting the eight-bedroom mansion on the market in 2024.
The Queen star left Garden Lodge, located in Kensington, to one-time fiancée Mary Austin after his 1991 death from AIDS-related bronchial pneumonia aged 45.
Mary, 74, is currently locked in a feud with Freddie’s sister Kashmira Bulsara over the star’s belongings – with the grieving sibling forced to spend £3million in secretly buying her brother’s memorabilia after Mary put the items up for sale.
The hitmaker, real name Farrokh Bulsara, left the biggest chunk of his fortune to Mary, who even took charge of his ashes following his funeral.
Mary’s difficulties in selling the home are said to be good news for Kashmira, with sources telling The Sun: ‘[Kashmira] was upset at the thought of any of Freddie’s things being made available for sale to the public, especially Garden Lodge.’
Freddie Mercury’s ex has failed in her bid to sell his £30m London home Garden Lodge (pictured) – after putting the eight-bedroom mansion on the market in 2024
The Queen star left Garden Lodge, located in Kensington, to one-time fiancée Mary Austin after his 1991 death from AIDS-related bronchial pneumonia aged 45 (Freddie and Mary, pictured in 1986)
Mary, 74, is currently locked in a feud with Freddie’s sister Kashmira Bulsara (pictured in November) over the star’s belongings – with the grieving sibling forced to spend £3million in secretly buying her brother’s memorabilia after Mary put the items up for sale
Last year, Kashmira reportedly spent £3million ensuring the Queen frontman’s personal belongings are preserved for future generations of the Bulsara family, after they were put up for auction by Mary.
It was Mary who asked Jim Hutton, the man the singer shared his life with from 1985 until his death, to vacate Garden Lodge just months after the star’s will was revealed.
Kashmira and her son, Jamal Zook, decided to bid for the pop star’s possessions while remaining anonymous, so as not to alert Mary of their intentions,
The covert mission led many to believe there was an icy froideur between the woman Freddie dubbed my ‘common-law wife’ and others close to him.
When the Zanzibar-born star was buried in a traditional Zoroastrian funeral at the West London Crematorium in 1991, in line with the religion of his parents, Mary revealed later that she had taken the singer’s ashes after the ceremony.
She went on to explain that she’d invited Freddie’s parents, Bomi and Jer, to another pseudo ceremony to say a final goodbye to their son.
Of the auction, a source told The Sun last year: ‘Kashmira was angry and upset to see so many of her beloved brother’s possessions become available for anyone to buy…
‘Of course, Kashmira appreciates how adored Freddie was across the world, but she was saddened to think of some of his sentimental belongings not being with his loved ones.’
Kashmira is pictured in 2018
The close relationship Mary shared with Freddie during his lifetime saw her become the most significant beneficiary for the Queen frontman’s £200million estate – inheriting 50 per cent – plus millions more in royalties in the decades since.
In 2024, she received a rumoured £187.5million windfall following the sale of Queen’s back catalogue in a £1billion deal with Sony.
Meanwhile, Kashmira, six years his junior, and Bomi and Jer each inherited 25 per cent of the estate – but when Freddie’s parents died, their remaining share of the estate was bequeathed to Mary Austin.
Mary, who reportedly isn’t in regular contact with Queen’s surviving members, Roger Taylor, John Deacon and Brian May, is also a trustee of a charity set up in Freddie’s honour, the Mercury Phoenix Trust.
Mary and Freddie first met in 1970 when he was a young aspiring musician, who had moved to London six years prior from Zanzibar, where he and Kashmira were born.
Quickly falling in love, they moved in together and got engaged in 1973, but three years later Freddie came out to Mary, announcing that he was bisexual.
Mary and Freddie were never legally bound by marriage but the star called her his ‘wife’ long after their relationship had ended.
It was Mary who asked Jim Hutton, the man the singer shared his life with from 1985 until his death, to vacate Garden Lodge just months after the star’s will was revealed
He once said: ‘All my lovers asked me why they couldn’t replace Mary, but it’s simply impossible. The only friend I’ve got is Mary, and I don’t want anybody else. To me, she was my common-law wife. To me, it was a marriage.
‘We believe in each other. That’s enough for me. I couldn’t fall in love with a man the same way as I have with Mary.’
In a rare interview, Mary, recalled the moment the pop icon had revealed his true sexuality to her: ‘He said, “I think I am bisexual. I told him: “I think you’re gay.” And nothing else was said. We just hugged.’
After Freddie’s funeral in 1991, Mary revealed that she had, upon the singer’s wishes, taken the urn holding his ashes back to Garden Lodge in Kensington, which the singer had bought for £300,000 in 1978.
Freddie is pictured during his iconic Live Aid performance in 1985
She explained: ‘He suddenly announced one day after Sunday lunch, “I know exactly where I want you to put me. But nobody is to know because I don’t want anyone to dig me up.”
‘Those were his exact words, “I just want to rest in peace'”.
Going to great lengths to keep the final resting place for his ashes a secret, it’s believed Freddie’s parents were allowed by Mary to say a final goodbye, although it’s thought his sister wasn’t present.
The 2018 film Bohemian Rhapsody, starring Rami Malek as Freddie and Lucy Boynton as Mary Austin, shone a light on their relationship, portraying Mary as a faithful friend who stood by Freddie throughout the highs and lows of his life.
Neighbours in Kensington once described the now 74-year-old Mary as ‘reclusive’ and rarely seen, except for when she would venture out in a battered old Mercedes.
The 2018 film Bohemian Rhapsody, starring Rami Malek as Freddie (pictured) and Lucy Boynton as Mary Austin, shone a light on their relationship, portraying Mary as a faithful friend who stood by Freddie throughout the highs and lows of his life
In February last year, Mary put the house she’d lived in since Freddie’s death up for sale for £30million.
And what of Hutton, who was the man Freddie loved until his dying day? In a 1994 memoir, Irish-born Hutton, who died of lung cancer in 2021, claimed Freddie had promised him memorabilia before his death – including the lyrics to his most famous song.
Hutton wrote: ‘Some of my things remain at Garden Lodge. I clean forgot about the trunk of goodies including the Bohemian Rhapsody lyrics which Freddie got out of storage for me a year before he died.’
Almost 35 years after the death of her brother, Kashmira is now seemingly determined to bring her older brother’s possessions into the Bulsara family.
She reportedly went to a private viewing beforehand and then sent her PA to Sotheby’s on her behalf, while watching online and instructing on amounts to bid.
