Brian May of Queen got angry at a news cameraman filming him as he signed autographs for fans in Brisbane, Australia.
In a video report posted toYouTube May turned to the 7NEWS Brisbane cameraman and said, "You've gotta stop that because I ain't doing this." The cameraman continued filming and once again May asked him to stop. Then the guitarist moved toward the cameraman and said, "All right, is this going to get ugly? Because you put it down now or else something ugly happens. Do you understand? You stop now. I'm serious, I'm deadly serious."
The cameraman put the news camera away but pulled out his phone to film May, which made him even more upset. He said, "Oh, the guy's doing it on his phone now. You're so clever, aren't you? What a parasite you are. Just leave us alone, will you? Do you not understand? All right, all right. You go away now!"
May apologized to the fans as he left the airport in a car. "I'm sorry it was made ugly by this guy." May and Queen are playing a show in Brisbane Thursday.
May wrote about the incident in a series of Instagram posts on Wednesday morning. He said that "I’ve interacted with literally thousands of news reporters, photographers and cameramen over the last 50 years. I’m not exactly known for being aggressive, even in the face of provocation, but this guy caught me unawares – one of the rudest and most disrespectful video cameramen I’ve ever encountered."
May explained that he saw some kids with Queen albums and wanted to say hello when he noticed the cameraman. "I just let him film for the few moments I was signing the albums. But these kids were clearly very moved by the meeting, and I felt they deserved to have a few moments NOT being filmed for public sharing. So, in the nicest possible way, I turned to the cameraman and asked if he’d stop filming, now he’d got his story, and give us some private moments. He refused. He kept on filming, and aggressively turned the camera close-up on my face. That, to me, felt like deliberate invasion of my space, and downright unfriendly. At that moment, everything changed." I had walked straight into a trap. The guy now had what he wanted. He could cook this up into a story in which I was portrayed as an attacker on an innocent victim of a newsman. He possessed the only footage of the incident, so he or his bosses could edit it any way they wanted, to make me look like I lost my rag for no reason. And that, predictably, is exactly what Channel 7 did."
He concluded, "Tonight I still feel bruised, but finally being able to write this is a kind of therapy. I had to make my side of the story known. Being disrespected so publicly takes a little while to get over."
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