Freddie Mercury lost most of one of his feet to AIDS before he died.

The flamboyant Queen frontman battled his illness in private, and despite mounting speculation that he had contracted the devastating virus infection, Freddie only publicly shared his AIDS status 24 hours before he died in 1991 from bronchial pneumonia resulting from his illness.

Talking to The Sunday Times, Mercury’s former bandmate Brian May shared how hard it was to watch his friend suffer towards the end.

“The problem was actually his foot — and, tragically there was very little left of it,” May sighed. “Once, he showed it to us at dinner. And he said: ‘Oh Brian, I’m sorry I’ve upset you by showing you that’. And I said, ‘I’m not upset, Freddie, except to realize that you have to put up with so much terrible pain’.”

Mercury died at the height of the AIDS epidemic, with stars Rock Hudson and Liberace also dying from AIDS-related illnesses.

Nowadays the HIV virus, which leads to AIDS, isn’t a death sentence, and May says his friend missed out on lifesaving “magic cocktail” of antiretroviral drugs by just a few months.

“If it had been just a bit later he would still be with us, I’m sure. But you can’t go there because therein lies madness,” he added.