12-15-1996 – News of the World – Ghost of Rock Legend

My wife has had five-year fling with ghost of rock legend Freddie Mercury
Queen star’s love in stalking nightmare. ROCK superstar Freddie Mercury is being named from beyond the grave as the other man in a sensational divorce wrangle.

Stuart Burgess’s blonde wife Christine brags that the Queen hero’s spirit has broken free from the shackles of death to enjoy a FIVE-YEAR fling with her.

And now her oddball fantasies have turned to terror for Freddie’s REAL lover Mary Austin-as crazy Christine stalks her grief-stricken “rival” in her own home.

Angry husband Stuart has revealed how his wife claims to be having a relationship with the deceased singer, and insists they are in regular contact.

And Stuart is said to be fed up at being compared to Freddie’s Mr Perfect ways.

Housewife Burgess boasts that Freddie first appeared to her at home in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, just weeks after dying from AIDS in 1991.

And she babbles how he urges her to sort out cash squabbles sparked by his will so fans can share mounting royalty millions.

But after nine years marriage Stuart brands his missus mentally unstable. He swears her obsession has caused him huge distress and feelings of rejection.

Pestering

And the News of the World has discovered how she piles even more misery on the pop legend’s genuine friends and loved ones- making their lives hell.

Last week we revealed how Mary Austin planned to quit the West London mansion left to her by lover Freddie, because of constant pestering by fans.

We now know that her greatest tormentor is barmy Burgess.

She once turned up on Mary’s doorstep at the Pounds 4 million Garden Lodge demanding to move in.

The 39-year-old crank claimed she had as much right to it because she and Freddie were lovers in a former life. When Mary told her to go away, Burgess turned nasty.

In a series of sinister phone calls she described to Mary how she had been watching her two little sons play football in the garden.

A friend told us: “What made it so chilling was that to see over the garden walls she must have been spying from a vantage point in a nearby building. The poor woman is clearly being stalked.

“Mary now lives in fear for her children’s safety.”

The mere mention of Burgess’s name now sends Mary into panic.

When we contacted her yesterday she put the phone down abruptly after insisting: “I’m NOT talking about that woman!”

This was a stark contrast to the friendly interview she gave our reporter Paul McMullan last week about problems with the house.

Queen guitarist Brian May has also been targeted.

He was so scared he had to instruct lawyers to take action to stop Burgess pursuing him and his girlfriend, former EastEnders star Anita Dobson.

The legal eagles were called in after Burgess conned her way into Anita’s dressing room, demanding to be taken to Brian.

In a ghoulish attempt to appear part of the Queen entourage, Burgess claims that Dr. Gordon Atkinson-who treated Freddie when he was dying-is a friend.

But the truth is she met the specialist as just another patient.

And she even wrote a sick letter to Freddie’s former boyfriend, Jim Hutton, who is in Ireland and HIV positive. She offered to care for him and then twisted the knife by adding that nobody else would as he was “unclean.” A close pal told us: “Jim was appalled and saddened. He didn’t bother writing back.”

Then name-dropper Burgess picked on another of Freddie’s mates, actor Peter Straker.

She gushed to a News of the World investigator how Peter had treated her to dinner at the Ritz after she contacted him on the dead singer’s behalf.

The real story is that SHE asked Straker out after wangling her way backstage at London’s Cambridge Theatre, claiming to have important news.

Comic Kenny Everett’s widow Lee-who was with Freddie in his final moments-is on the receiving end of lies, too. Burgess told us that Freddie’s ghost ordered her to contact psychic therapist Lee four years ago. And she claimed they had been pals ever since.

But yesterday Lee insisted: “We do not have a friendship. It’s purely a client-counsellor relationship. The whole Freddie thing is ridiculous.

“I get masses of people contacting me when somebody famous dies, all claiming to have seen them.

“If I got involved with them all I’d go mental.”

Last night Burgess was still raving. She denied hounding anyone and proclaimed SHE was the one telling the truth, adding:

“These people are frightened because Freddie is with ME.”