In 2015, on the song’s 40th anniversary, writer Lesley-Ann Jones said that Mercury’s former lover Jim Hutton had confirmed the theory to her. It’s not the first time that 'Bohemian Rhapsody ' has been read this way. anyone who doesn’t identify as straight), the queer allusions are easy to pick up on, despite Mercury’s reticence to discuss the song’s meaning explicitly. There are many citable moments in 'Bohemian Rhapsody' that Branum suggests mirror gay experiences, from telling his mother, to fear of persecution (the song was released in 1975, two years before the partial decriminalization of homosexuality in the UK).
