Far less known than his other longtime companion, Mary Austin, Jim Hutton was, however, the man who meant everything during the last years of Freddie Mercury’s life.
He was with Freddie when he died and kept on living in their apartment for some time afterward.
The singer called him his ‘husband’ (between quotation marks, as same-sex marriage wasn’t yet legal during those days), and they used to attend social events together as any married couple would.
But who was Jim Hutton, the man who stole Queen’s lead singer’s heart away?
A hairdresser when he met Mercury at a gay bar in 1984 (having immigrated to the United States from his native Ireland some time during the 1960s), he quickly became known as the singer’s partner and later his biographer, when he published Mercury and Me in 1994.
Keep reading as we review ten facts about Hutton, Freddie Mercury’s Irish husband, and the last love of his life.
10 /10 A Rough Start
Though they would later become inseparable, the truth is that at first, Hutton rejected Mercury’s advances when they both first met at Heaven, the famous London gay bar.
According to his own words in later interviews, the singer offered to buy him a drink, but Hutton (who was in another relationship at the time) politely rejected his advances.
It would only be after a full year that the two would meet again in another bar, and Freddie Mercury, perhaps remembering him, also offered to buy him a drink. They hit it off straight away and began dating.
9 /10 Gardener, Then Husband
After about a year, Hutton moved to Freddie’s mansion in Kensington (he would later recall that Mercury “orchestrated that well”), officially as his ‘gardener.’
And though Hutton, an Irish man of sturdy build, mustache and honest manners, somehow fitted this supposed role well, it didn’t pass long before Freddy started referred to his supposed gardener as his husband.
Hutton could then retake his past job as a hairdresser, content (one can assume) to be finally recognized for what he was.