[Updated] Brian May Clarifies His Statement On Bryan Singer

*This piece has been updated to reflect Brian May’s latest comment on Bryan Singer*

Bohemian Rhapsody is meant to be a movie documenting the beginning of Queen’s long career. What it does is give us a half-baked look at the band’s interpretation of Freddie Mercury rather than an accurate telling of his life. As if the success of Bohemian Rhapsody wasn’t enough to rub fans the wrong way, it seemed as if Brian May was continuing to support Bryan Singer despite the 20+ years of sexual abuse allegations against him.

In an Instagram post, one user brought up the allegations to May, and his response was pretty disappointingly clear on where he stood with Singer.

In case you were wondering how the people who fought to let Bryan Singer direct Bohemian Rhapsody felt about The Atlantic story. pic.twitter.com/GDC6co5l5e

— Kayleigh Donaldson (@Ceilidhann) January 24, 2019

Instead of taking into consideration a fan’s simple suggestion that he unfollow Bryan Singer, May supports Singer. We here at the Mary Sue have continually reported on the Singer allegations, making it clear that it wasn’t just one instance of allegations against him, and there are even more still coming out.

While Fox may be pretending that Singer didn’t work on the movie, he’s making sure we don’t forget that it is indeed his movie with a warped sense of who Freddie Mercury that we’re seeing, and Brian May seemed too invested in that to give these allegations the consideration they deserve.

Kayleigh Donaldson, a features writer for Screenrant, pointed out that the movie continues to perpetuate the band’s version of Freddie Mercury and not the actual story we should have been getting in the first place:

My guess is he wanted a convenient puppet who wouldn’t want to, you know, fact check May’s version of history or the blatant character assassination of Mercury. Why worry about 20 decades of child sex abuse allegations?

— Kayleigh Donaldson (@Ceilidhann) January 24, 2019

So, where does this leave Bohemian Rhapsody? The movie is currently nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. As Vulture points out, the movie is very strategic in who they broach the topic of their director: They just don’t bring Singer up.

Since the original post, Brian May has made a statement regarding his original stance on Bryan Singer.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Dear Folks – I was shocked and saddened to realise what I had done by my hasty and inconsiderate IG reply to this lady yesterday. I’ve posted an apology to her in the ‘reply’ box, but it seems to have disappeared – so I’m going to try to repeat it here, to be clear. ———- Dear Sue, I’m so sorry that I responded to your post so snappily and inconsiderately. My response was a result of my perception that someone was telling me what to do. I now realise that I was completely wrong in thinking that. You were actually just trying to protect me, for which I thank you. I am mortified to discover the effect my words produced. I had no idea that saying someone was innocent until proven guilty could be interpreted as “defending“ Bryan Singer. I had absolutely no intention of doing that. I guess I must be naive, because also it had never occurred to me that ‘following’ a person on Instagram could be interpreted as approving of that person. The only reason I followed Bryan Singer was that we were working with him on a project. That situation came to an end when Mr Singer was removed during the shooting of the film, but I suppose unfollowing him never occurred to me as a necessity. Now, because of this misunderstanding, I have unfollowed. I’m so sorry. This must have caused you a lot of upset. I wish I could take the comment back, but all I can do is apologise, and hope that my apology will begin to make amends. Sadly, this is all very public, but since I snapped at you in public, it’s only fitting that I should apologise in public. I’m going to try to follow you so we can communicate privately if you want. With love – Bri. —— I should add that this is also a sincere apology to anyone else out there that I inadvertently offended. No such offence was intended and I will be more careful in future. Bri

A post shared by Brian Harold May (@brianmayforreal) on Jan 24, 2019 at 8:25pm PST

Look, I saw the movie. I love Queen. I thought that it had one great element to it: Rami Malek. Other than that, it wasn’t anything special enough to even be nominated for Best Picture. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was a much better movie, well constructed, and didn’t tear down the name of Freddie Mercury in the process. Nor did it have a sequence at the end of the movie where Freddie Mercury finds out he has AIDS the day of the Live Aid concert (which is untrue), falls in love, reconnects with his family, performs at Live Aid, and then, subsequently, saves Africa, all in one day.

It’s not a great movie, Bryan Singer is a terrible human being, but at least Brian May is making it clear that he wasn’t supporting Singer with his statement.

(image: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

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