This story about Freddie Mercury sneaking Princess Diana into a gay bar should really be in The Crown
Freddie Mercury, Princess Diana and Kenny Everett once went to a gay bar – and it was dramatised in a Sky Arts programme called Urban Legends (Sky Arts)
In the 1980s, Freddie Mercury dressed Princess Diana up as an “eccentrically dressed gay male model”, in order to sneak her into the Vauxhall Tavern, according to widely-corroborated reports.
One of those reports was published back in 2013 in the serialised autobiography of comedian Cleo Rocos and (in our opinion) really should have made it into the current series of The Crown.
Ms Rocos says she attended the famous LGBTQ+ bar with Princess Diana, Freddie Mercury and comedian Kenny Everett. She wrote that after drinking together at Kenny Everett’s house in London, the four wanted to go out to a bar.
Upon the arrival of Queen singer Freddie Mercury, she explained that the three of them dressed Diana in an army jacket, a leather cap concealing her hair, and dark aviator sunglasses, in order to sneak her into the bar.
“Scrutinising her in the half light,” she writes, “we decided that the most famous icon of the modern world might just — just — pass for a rather eccentrically dressed gay male model.”
RELATED: How Princess Diana transformed global attitudes to HIV AIDS
On arriving at the Vauxhall Tavern, she wrote: “The place was full. It took an absolute aeon to edge our way to the bar, with person after person cheerfully greeting us. It was fabulously outrageous and so bizarrely exciting. Our hearts pounded with every new leather-clad hairy body that approached, but no one, absolutely no one, recognised Diana.
“On we inched, through the leather throngs and thongs, until finally we reached the bar. We were nudging each other like naughty schoolchildren. Diana and Freddie were giggling, but she did order a white wine and a beer. Once the transaction was completed, we looked at one another, united in our triumphant quest. We did it!”
“Never has going to a bar been quite so exhilarating and fun. We then made a swift exit, a cab was hailed and we whisked Diana back to Kensington Palace. The jolly queens queuing outside unknowingly waved back as their ‘queen of hearts’ waved goodbye. Not a single person ever found us out.”
In the early 1990s, when HIV and AIDS were surrounded by hysteria and prejudice, Diana became patron of the National AIDS Trust, the UK’s leading independent policy and campaigning voice on HIV and AIDS.
She was patron of the National AIDS Trust from 1991 until her death in 1997.
Freddie Mercury died of AIDS related complications in 1991.
SEE ALSO: How Princess Diana transformed global attitudes to HIV AIDS
