Brian May Offers Apology for Bryan Singer Comments

World-renown Queen guitarist (and astrophysicist) Brian May says he didn’t understand how his comments about “following” Bryan Singer via Instagram could be taken as support for the man. While you take a minute to contemplate how someone with a PHD couldn’t understand this, a bit of background.

Bryan Singer was originally the director on FOX’s award-winning Bohemian Rhapsody biopic about the rock band Queen. He was subsequently fired from the production by the studio for not showing up to set, and reportedly throwing things at star Rami Malek (a report that hasn’t been confirmed by Malek, we should point out).

This isn’t even considering the numerous allegations brought forth against the filmmaker over the years, ranging from underage non-consensual sex, to outright rape. Just last week, a new editorial about said allegations towards Singer was published by The Atlantic; a piece which brought a strongly-worded response from Singer against the authors.

His response to the piece was met by lots of head-scratching, and resulted in Bohemian Rhapsody being removed from the GLAAD Awards list of best films. You can read more about that here.

Cut to guitar great Brian May, and his Instagram account.

A follower commented to May that he needed to “unfollow” Singer’s account on the day the Atlantic article hit. May responded to the comment, saying: “You need to look after your own business and stop telling me what to do. And you need to learn to respect the fact that a man or woman is innocent until proven guilty.”

He’s since apologized for that response, posting a lengthy explanation (and apology) about his reactionary comment:

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Dear Folks – I was shocked and saddened to realise what I had done by my hasty and inconsiderate IG reply to this lady yesterday. I’ve posted an apology to her in the ‘reply’ box, but it seems to have disappeared – so I’m going to try to repeat it here, to be clear. ———- Dear Sue, I’m so sorry that I responded to your post so snappily and inconsiderately. My response was a result of my perception that someone was telling me what to do. I now realise that I was completely wrong in thinking that. You were actually just trying to protect me, for which I thank you. I am mortified to discover the effect my words produced. I had no idea that saying someone was innocent until proven guilty could be interpreted as “defending” Bryan Singer. I had absolutely no intention of doing that. I guess I must be naive, because also it had never occurred to me that ‘following’ a person on Instagram could be interpreted as approving of that person. The only reason I followed Bryan Singer was that we were working with him on a project. That situation came to an end when Mr Singer was removed during the shooting of the film, but I suppose unfollowing him never occurred to me as a necessity. Now, because of this misunderstanding, I have unfollowed. I’m so sorry. This must have caused you a lot of upset. I wish I could take the comment back, but all I can do is apologise, and hope that my apology will begin to make amends. Sadly, this is all very public, but since I snapped at you in public, it’s only fitting that I should apologise in public. I’m going to try to follow you so we can communicate privately if you want. With love – Bri. —— I should add that this is also a sincere apology to anyone else out there that I inadvertently offended. No such offence was intended and I will be more careful in future. Bri

A post shared by Brian Harold May (@brianmayforreal) on Jan 24, 2019 at 8:25pm PST

Bohemian Rhapsody took home the SAG AFTRA award for Best Leading Actor for Malek last night, and is nominated for a total of 5 Oscars.