Freddie Mercury spent years hiding a secret. In 1986, he learned that he was HIV-positive and, with the silent complicity of his Queen bandmates, kept it hidden for four years while he continued filling stadiums.
On November 23, 1991, he broke the silence: a brief statement confirmed what many suspected, that he had AIDS. It was then that a paparazzo captured the image that the Daily Mirror would publish shortly afterward, that of an unrecognizable man, wasted away, far removed from the icon the world knew.
Less than 24 hours after that announcement, Mercury died of bronchopneumonia resulting from the disease. He was 45 years old. That photo, taken without his knowledge, remained as the last record of a body that could no longer sustain the legend.