While Capital Radio hadn't officially accepted the song, the anarchic Everett would talk incessantly about a record he had but couldn't play, before the song "accidentally" started playing, with Everett stating: "Oops, my finger must've slipped."Capital's switchboard was jammed with callers wanting to know when the song was going to be released – on one occasion Everett aired the song 36 times in one day.
During the 1970s, their friendship became closer, with Everett becoming advisor and mentor to Mercury, and Mercury as Everett's confidante, helping him to accept his sexuality. Throughout the early- to mid-1980s, they continued to explore their homosexuality, as well as experimenting in drugs, and although they were never lovers, they did experience London night life on a regular basis together. By 1985, they had fallen out over a disagreement on their using and sharing of drugs, and their friendship was further strained when Everett was outed in the autobiography of his ex-wife "Lady Lee", with Mercury taking Lee's side. With both suffering from failing health, Mercury and Everett started talking again in 1989, and they were able to reconcile their differences.
Sexual orientation
While some commentators claimed Mercury hid his sexual orientation from the public, others claimed he was "openly gay". In December 1974, when asked directly, "So how about being bent?" by the New Musical Express, Mercury replied, "You're a crafty cow. Let's put it this way: there were times when I was young and green. It's a thing schoolboys go through. I've had my share of schoolboy pranks. I'm not going to elaborate further." Homosexual acts between adult males over the age of 21 had been decriminalised in the United Kingdom in 1967, only seven years earlier. In the 1980s, he would often distance himself from his partner, Jim Hutton, during public events. In October 1986, The Sun claimed Mercury had "confessed to a string of one-night gay sex affairs".
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