N October 1986, the British press reported that Me Essays

n October 1986, the British press reported that Mercury had his blood tested for HIV/AIDS at a Harley Street clinic. A reporter for The Sun , Hugh Whittow , questioned Mercury about the story at Heathrow Airport as he was returning from a trip to Japan. Mercury denied he had a sexually transmitted disease . [88] According to his partner Jim Hutton, Mercury was diagnosed with AIDS in late April 1987. [100] Around that time, Mercury claimed in an interview to have tested negative for HIV. [34] Despite the denials, the British press pursued the rampant rumours over the next few years, fuelled by Mercury's increasingly gaunt appearance, Queen's absence from touring and reports from former lovers to various tabloid journals - by 1990 the rumours about Mercury's health were rife. [101] At the 1990 Brit Awards held at the Dominion Theatre , London, on 18 February, a visibly frail Mercury made his final appearance on stage when he joined the re st of Queen to collect the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. [102] [103] Towards the end of his life, he was routinely stalked by photographers, while The Sun featured a series of articles claiming that he was ill; notably in an article from November 1990 that featured an image of a haggard-looking Mercury on the front page accompanied by the headline, "It's official - Freddie is seriously ill." [104] However, Mercury and his inner circle of colleagues and friends, whom he felt he could trust, continually denied the stories, even after one front-page article published on 29 April 1991, showed Mercury appearing very haggard in what was by then a rare public appearance. [105] It has been suggested that he could have made a contribution to AIDS awareness by speaking earlier about his situation and his fight against the disease. [106] [107] Mercury kept his condition private to protect those closest to him, with Brian May confirming in a 1993 interview he had informed the band of his illness much earlier. [108] [109] Filmed in May 1991, the music video for " These Are the Days of Our Lives " features a very thin Mercury, in what are his final scenes in front of the camera. [110] The rest of the band were ready to record when Mercury felt able to come into the studio, for an hour or two at a time. May says of Mercury: "He just kept saying. 'Write me mor e. Write me stuff. I want to just sing this and do it and when I am gone you can finish it off.' He had no fear, really." [99] Justin Shirley-Smith, the assistant engineer for those last sessions, states: "This is hard to explain to people, but it wasn't sad, it was very happy. He [Freddie] was one of the funniest people I ever encountered. I was laughing most of the time, with him. Freddie was saying [of his illness] 'I'm not going to think about it, I'm going to do this.' [99] After the conclusion of his work with Queen in June 1991, Mercury retired to his home in Kensington , west London. His former partner, Mary Austin, had been a particular comfort in his final years, and in the last few weeks of his life made regular visits to his home to look after him. [111] Near the end of his life Mercury was starting to lose his sight, and he deteriorated to the point where he could not get out of bed. [111] Due to his worsening condition, Mercury decided to hasten his death by refusing to take his medication and continued taking only painkillers. [111]