Queen guitarist Brian May shares that he had minor stroke

77-year-old Queen guitarist Brian May just shared that he suffered a minor stroke—or a “health hiccup,” as he called it in a video letting fans in on his condition. “I think the good news is that I can play guitar after the events of the last few days, and I say this because it was in some doubt because of that little Health hiccup that I mentioned happened about a week ago,” he said. “What they called it was a minor stroke and all of a sudden—out of the blue—I didn’t have any control of this arm, so it’s a little scary.” 

May is potentially downplaying how terrifying something like this is, especially as a musician, but he does say he had “fantastic care and attention” from the hospital “where I went blue lights flashing… Very exciting!” He’s listening to doctors and doing what he’s been told to do which is “basically nothing.” For the time being, he’s not allowed to drive, go on a plane, or do anything to raise his heart rate, but he’s assuring fans that he’s “good” and “[doesn’t] want sympathy… ’cause it’ll clutter up my Inbox and I hate that.” 

This isn’t the first time May has suffered a bit of a “health hiccup.” In 2020, the guitarist had a “near death” experience after suffering a heart attack, which he called “small” in the video he shared to reveal the news. Should we all have such good attitudes about our own health hiccups.

Even though he’s been temporarily “grounded,” May is still busy. The guitarist recently aired his documentary Brian May: The Badgers, the Farmers and Me, which follows his decades-long campaign to end the UK’s annual badger culling, which, according to the BBC, the country has done in an attempt to eradicate dangerous bovine tuberculosis. Over 230,000 badgers have been killed in the last decade, the outlet says. Just this week, it was announced that the practice will end within five years and be replaced by badger vaccinations instead of culling, but May says it’s “not enough.” “Anyone who saw the documentary will clearly understand that the cull is achieving NOTHING, and so halting it does not leave a gap,” he wrote in an Instagram post reacting to the news. 

“The other news is our documentary has been very much in our minds and we had some great reactions from farmers particularly,” he also shared in his video update. “We are not at odds at all with the farmers. We are at odds with the people who have been feeding them the wrong information.” If you’re in the UK, you can watch May’s documentary on BBC iPlayer now.