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White Blood Cells Are Gay Lovers in New Freddie Mercury Video

“Love Me Like There’s No Tomorrow” will be included on the Queen frontman's solo box set.

What, did Rocketman mania make you forget about Freddie Mercury?

Celebrating Mercury's birthday, Universal Music Group has released a new music video for the Queen frontman's 1985 solo song “Love Me Like There’s No Tomorrow.” Directed by Esteban Bravo and Beth David, the animated promo explores the late icon’s battle with AIDS through a moving love story about two white blood cells.

"We wanted to tell a story that was relevant to Freddie's life, but not explicitly about him," Bravo and David write in a statement. "The AIDS crisis of the 1980s is a huge part of LGBT+ history, and it's something that we knew needed to be handled with care. It's a fine line to walk between shedding light on a subject, and perpetuating a stigma, and we were cautious not to lean into tropes and stereotypes that might hurt the modern understanding of the AIDS virus, rather than help it."

"In researching the HIV/AIDS virus and the way it affects the body’s immune system, we were inspired to take a look at the story through a more microscopic lens," the directors continue. "It is a love story between two white blood cells, one of which has become infected by the virus. This perspective gave us a more direct visual representation of our conflict, which allowed us to explore the more nuanced struggles the characters face in their relationship with each other, their perceptions of themselves, and society’s perception, bias, and neglect of them."

"The LGBT+ community fought for years for the right to proper research and healthcare, and because of that fight, millions of lives have been saved. We wanted to celebrate that victory. Through perseverance, strength, and love, our characters not only survive, but live long, healthy lives together."

The “Love Me Like There’s No Tomorrow” video, which features animation from Woodblock, follows the June release of “Time Waits for No One,” an unearthed alternate version of a single Mercury released in 1986.

Both songs will be included in Universal's Never Boring box set, the definitive Mercury solo collection, out October 11.

Mercury died in 1991 at age 45. Rami Malek won the Best Actor Oscar for portraying the legend in the 2018 biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, the highest grossing queer-themed film of all time.

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