20 Vintage Photos Of Freddie Mercury And His Cats That Show His Love For Them Was Unconditional

Some people prefer dogs. Others prefer hamsters or parrots. And Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen preferred cats. So much, in fact, he even wrote a song for his cat Delilah!

Back in the 1970s, Freddie’s girlfriend at the time, Mary Austin, bought the couple a pair of cats named Tom and Jerry. The singer instantly fell in love with the furry critters, even calling Mary to check up on them when touring, according to his assistant Peter Freestone.

“He’d get to a hotel, we’d dial through, and he really would talk to his cats,” said Freestone. According to him, the singer even had Mary turn up the receiver when calling so that the cats could hear his voice.

Some sources say that at one point Mercury hosted 10 cats: Tom, Jerry, Tiffany, Dorothy, Delilah, Goliath, Lily, Miko, Oscar, and Romeo. Freestone says that the cats were Freddie’s family and that the singer filled the cats’ stockings with presents every Christmas.

Most of Freddie’s cats were strays picked up from rescue centers, said Jacky Smith, a long time leader of the Official Queen Fan Club. “Most of them were from rescue centers. We have a charity [in the United Kingdom] called The Blue Cross, which takes care of sick animals. Freddie got at least two from them.”

Mercury’s solo album, Mr. Bad Guy, is said to bed dedicated to his cat Jerry and the rest of the chowder, according to the Queen Archives.

Delilah, one of the songs from the last album Mercury recorded with Queen, sounds like a song about a woman – until the part about her peeing all over his Chippendale Suite, that is. The song, in fact, was made out to one of Freddie’s cats of the same name and even features a guitar solo by Brian May that sounds like cat meows.

Another sign of the singer’s love for cats was found by fans on the inside insert of the Classic Queen CD. It featured a picture of Mercury in a colorful handpainted vest with pictures of his cats. It is the same vest he wore in the video for These Are The Days Of Our Lives.

Delilah was the most famous out of all of Freddie’s cats – he adopted her in 1987 and she quickly took over the house and acted as she pleased. “She was a real character, that lady! Delilah was just kind of funny. She was a bit of a bully to the others, but was always first on his lap, first for food,” said Jacky Smith. Jim Hutton, Mercury’s boyfriend of seven years even described the cat as “the little princess” and “the one he’d pick up and stroke the most often.”

“Freddie treated the cats like his own children,” explained Hutton in his book Mercury and Me. “He would constantly fuss over them, and if any of them came to any harm when Freddie was away, heaven help us. During the day the cats had the run of the house and grounds, and at night one of us would round them up and bring them inside.”