Queen guitarist Brian May says he suffered from mental illness.
He revealed this in The Big Issue magazine, in a "Letter to My Younger Self" column.
May writes, "When you’ve got through severe depression, you feel it should be a real learning curve and you should be able to give good advice to other people. But I haven’t found that to be the case. I think the only thing I could say is, focus on that tiny light at the end of the tunnel. OK, this day is going to be [crap], end of story. But there will be another day which will be better. That’s the only advice which is of any use."
He adds that it probably stems from his childhood. “I still catch myself feeling like the shy schoolboy of many years ago. I don’t know how to start a conversation. It’s a complete shock to me when people treat me like someone they look up to or might be excited about meeting. People say, 'Oh, you’re very humble,' but that’s not it. It’s actually that I haven’t reprogrammed myself from those days.”
May says he suffered from depression in the early '90s following the death of Freddie Mercury, the collapse of his first marriage and the death of his father.