“I’m Just an Old Tart”: Freddie Mercury in His Own Words, Humble, Hilarious, and Utterly Unmatched Even in the Face of Legend
In an age when rock stars often drape themselves in ego, Freddie Mercury remained a striking contradiction: flamboyant on stage, yet disarmingly humble when the spotlight dimmed. Nowhere is that more evident than in one of his most beloved self-reflections—“I don’t think of myself as a legend. Me and legends don’t get on. I’m just a little sweetheart… I’m a sweetie.”
These words, delivered with his signature blend of cheek and charm, remind us that behind the soaring vocals and electrifying stage presence was a man with both feet planted firmly on the ground—when he wasn’t prancing across it in four-inch heels. For Freddie, being labeled a “legend” was almost absurd. He saw himself not as a mythic figure, but as a performer—brilliant, devoted, but above all, human.
“To me, a legend is somebody like Montserrat Caballé,” he once said, tipping his crown not to himself, but to the Spanish operatic soprano with whom he later collaborated on the album Barcelona. “She’s the legend, and I’m just an old tart!” His admiration for Caballé wasn’t just musical—it was spiritual. She represented to Freddie something eternal, divine, and truly untouchable. And by contrast, he saw himself as a showbiz misfit—a “sweetie” in sequins, doing what he loved with unapologetic flair.
The irony, of course, is that while Freddie rejected the notion of being a legend, he embodied one like few others ever have. His voice was operatic in range and emotional depth, his songwriting genre-bending, and his performances volcanic. He could bring Wembley Stadium to its knees with a single “Ay-oh” and light up a piano ballad with quiet devastation. Still, he never lost the ability to laugh at himself. “I’m just an old tart!”—he wasn’t joking, but he wasn’t fishing for praise either. That was Freddie: honest, wickedly funny, and refreshingly self-aware.
And perhaps that’s why fans love him all the more. Because the legend he never claimed became undeniable anyway. Because he showed us that greatness could wear eyeliner, flash a wicked grin, and call itself a tart without apology. In the end, there truly was no parallel. As Freddie himself put it best: “I don’t want to draw parallels to anybody else, because I don’t think I have a parallel.”
He was right. There isn’t. There never will be.