Before the world knew him as Freddie Mercury—the dazzling frontman of Queen, with his unmatched voice and magnetic stage presence—he was Farrokh Bulsara, a boy raised in a modest, close-knit family. And to his mother, Jer, no matter what the world saw, he remained simply her son.
Jer once recalled the moment Freddie came to her with a nervous look in his eyes.
“Mum,” he said hesitantly, “I’m not quite sure how to tell you this, but I’m not going to be Farrokh Bulsara anymore. From this day on, I’ll be known as Freddie Mercury. But I want you to know, this will be the name I use on stage. At home, I’ll always be the boy you’ve known. Are you okay with this?”
Jer smiled at her son and answered with the kind of unconditional love only a mother can give: “As long as you love me and respect me, everything will be alright.”
Freddie’s eyes softened. “That will always be, Mum,” he reassured her.
Like many mothers, Jer sometimes struggled to understand her son’s choices. She didn’t care much for the flamboyant clothes or the long hair, often trying to persuade him to dress differently. But Freddie would gently explain: “Mum, this is what you have to do in the pop world.” Slowly, she learned to accept it.
No matter how wild the outfits or how outrageous the performances, Jer said she always saw the same child she had raised—the same boy who loved to tell jokes, who made her laugh, and who never lost his kindness.
At home, Freddie was not the rock god the world worshipped. He was simply her son. He drew a firm line between his work and his private life. “If I ever asked,” Jer recalled, “he would say, ‘Mum, that is business, and this is family.’”
Despite the fame, the adoration, and the whirlwind of the music industry, Freddie remained grounded in the values his parents had instilled in him: respect for family, humility, and the importance of giving your all to whatever you do. “Although he wasn’t religious,” Jer said, “he respected our ways.”
Behind the legend was a man who loved and honored his parents, who never let the stage persona overshadow his roots. And behind the man was a mother who, through all the glitter and spectacle, never stopped seeing the child she had raised with love.
For Jer, the world may have claimed Freddie Mercury, but at the end of the day, he would always be Farrokh—her boy.
