Back in September this year Brian May surprised his concerned fans with the reveal that he’d suffered a stroke but – good news – was feeling fine and was in recovery.
The legendary Queen guitarist described how, "out of the blue, I didn't have any control over this arm," he described, but after a “very exciting” ambulance trip to his local Surrey, UK, hospital and the “most fantastic care” from staff there.
Writing following his recovery, May said: "The good news is I'm okay. Just doing what I'm told, which is basically nothing. I'm grounded. I'm not allowed to go out - well, I'm not allowed to drive, not allowed to get on a plane, not allowed to raise the heart rate too high... but I'm good."
Before explaining to concerned fans that: "I didn't want to say anything at the time because I really don't want sympathy. Please don't do that because it'll clutter up my inbox and I hate that,” and making light of his state as a “health hiccup.”
Of course, what his fans wanted to know was how was his playing faring up? “The good news is that I can play guitar after the events of the last few days,” May said.
His wife, actress Anita Dobson confirmed his status soon after, telling social media that they were “very pleased” with May’s progress and that she was “completely confident” that May would “make a full recovery”.
New health update
Following the scare, and request for calm the pair have concentrated on May’s recovery with no further word. However, Dobson recently appeared at the Television & Radio Industries Club Christmas Lunch, where she was honoured and given a Legend award.
“He’s much better now, he’s stabilised now, which is brilliant,” she said at the event. “I just hope we don’t have any more recurrences. He’s got the use of that arm, which was a bit of a challenge, back now. So, yeah, he’s good to go now. He’s playing the piano quite a lot in the house. He likes a lot of Beethoven. I love it - the piano in the house is really, just very relaxing.”
Dobson also revealed that May had taken it very easy, giving himself time before even attempting to play again.
“He didn’t actually try until after he’d recovered quite a bit,” she said. “And then he very slowly started to pick up an acoustic guitar and gradually just exercised the muscles. And it very quickly came back. He’s just retraining the messages from your brain to that arm, that it’s actually okay to do what it used to do. It was scary. And also being a genius for someone like that. His brain’s overloaded, that’s what it is. He’s too clever for his own good.”
Dobson also revealed that following May’s ‘grounding’ the two would be travelling to Lapland this month to “meet the elves”.
The couple celebrated their 24th wedding anniversary a fortnight ago, with Brian saying on social: “Take care out there folks and Carpe Diem ! Because tomorrow ... who knows where the wind might blow.”
May’s most recent trauma isn’t his first. In 2020 he revealed he'd suffered a heart attack while recovering from a painful, gardening-induced muscle and back injury. "It was about 40 minutes of pain in the chest and tightness, and that feeling in the arms and sweating,” he explained at the time. "I was actually very near death [but] I didn't die. I came out and I would have been full of beans if it hadn't been for the leg."
