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fuckyeahmercury · 4 years

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Hi, please can you clear something up for me? Did Freddie and Jim give each other the rings at the same time? I ask because I saw a photo of them which I think was taken in Japan (not sure tho) and Jim was wearing a ring on his ring finger of his left hand. I know that Jim gave Fred the ring on his birthday in '86 (read it on a fanpage here). So I was just wondering if Freddie gave Jim his ring soon after. Sorry I am relatively new to the fandom and haven't gotten around to reading Mercury and Me where I think this info will be present. Thanks!

sure, I love doing detective work. The answer is no, they did not give each other rings at the same time. I'll include some quotes from Mercury & Me. This is from Freddie's 1986 Mad Hat birthday party: "Freddie spent a great deal of time planning his birthday. He decided on a Mad Hat party and sent out over two hundred invitations for the afternoon of Sunday, 7 September (1986). I wanted to give Freddie something very special for a very special birthday: a gold wedding ring. It was to be a secret, so to discover his ring size I tried on an old battered one which Winnie (Kirchberger, Freddie's ex-boyfriend) had given him but was now so relegated to the bottom of a bedroom drawer. It fitted my little finger perfectly, and on that basis I went off and bought Freddie a plain, flat gold band. I mentioned I was buying it to Mary, who thought it's a lovely idea. On Thursday, the night before Freddie's birthday,several people were at the house. Peter Straker was there, which meant he and Freddie would be up all night. Just before I went to bed, I called Freddie into the dining room. 'I wanted you to have this first thing in the morning when you got up,' I said, passing him the box with the ring in it. He opened it up and tried on the ring at once. It fitted a treat. then he kissed me and we cuddled for a minute or two. He was never a jewellery queen, wearing little chains and twee bracelets. But he always wore the ring around the house. However, if he went out in public he'd usually slip it off. Gay or straight, a ring on your wedding finger tells the world that you're attached. He wanted to give nothing away."

At the end of September of 1986, Freddie and Jim took off for their Japanese holiday where they could both be seen wearing rings:

(sorry I don't have a scanner atm so I took these with my phone)

Freddie is obviously wearing Jim's ring, however Jim is not wearing a ring Freddie gave him because there's no mention of Freddie gifting Jim any jewellery before January 1987. I don't know where Jim got that ring but he’s also wearing it in 1985 when Freddie took him to Garden Lodge for the very first time, that’s when they were very early into their relationship:

So, fast forward to January 1st, 1987:

"For my thirty-eighth birthday (January 3rd) a few days later Freddie wanted to give me a piece of jewellery, a chunky gold bracelet. I knew it wasn't my sort of thing, but he disagreed. So we went off to see some in Cartier's, in Bond Street. Fortunately they had none in stock. Instead our eyes fell upon two incredible rings which had been commissioned but not bought: the smaller one was an 18 carat gold signet ring with a platinum top. I tried it on but it was way too big. We aborted the shopping spree. 'Don't worry,' Freddie said. 'We'll get something for your birthday, but you might not get it on your birthday.' A few days later I was working in the garden and Freddie came over to me. 'Here's a signed blank cheque,' he said. 'Go and buy yourself a piece of jewellery from Cartier's.' So I returned to Bond Street, picked out the ring I'd tried on with Freddie, and asked them to make it smaller. When I got home Freddie wanted to know what I'd bought as my birthday present. 'That ring we saw,' I told him. 'Lovely,' he replied."

So that's how it went, Jim bought Freddie the ring on his birthday in September 1986 and Freddie gave Jim a blank check in January 1987 to go buy himself something fancy at Cartier (how romantic 😂). also Jim didn't wear the ring at all times because as he was a gardener on the daily, it would be a risk losing it or damaging it. so to be quite honest I'm not even sure if there ever was an ‘official’ way of engagement; Freddie giving Jim a ring as a token of eternal love, this didn’t really happen like that since Freddie literally just signed him a check and said go buy yourself something. and I don’t know, maybe Freddie didn't expect that Jim would buy ring with that money, but he did.

This is the only photo in the book where Jim is wearing that ring from Cartier. taken in January 1989, Jim's 40th birthday:

I hope this was helpful 💍

#FYM Messages #Freddie Mercury #Jim Hutton #Mercury & Me #1980s

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