Did Freddie Mercury really call home on tour just to talk to his cat?
Yes. Freddie Mercury kept several cats at Garden Lodge in Kensington, dedicated albums to them by name, and asked his staff to hold the phone up to his cat Delilah from every city on tour so she could hear his voice. In this episode of Our Next Collar, Delilah explains Bohemian Rhapsody, the twenty-one minutes at Live Aid still studied as the greatest live performance ever recorded, and the quiet kitchen mornings that were just as real as the stage.
History remembers the famous. Their pets remember the person. On Our Next Collar, a brown tabby cat named Prince MoRee reaches the pets of history. One of them tells what they really saw. This episode is part of the Older Kids tier, for families ready to go a little deeper: same show, same honesty, told up a band and never grown-up. Tonight, two cats and the warmest interview of the season.
This episode is fully scripted and has passed the Talking With Pets accuracy review. The recording is in production. The audio player and the full transcript will appear right here the day the episode goes live. Join the founding list below and we will write to you when it does.
From the episode
Armando: Was he always performing? Even at home?
Delilah: Never. At home he gardened. He cooked. He threw enormous parties and also sat alone in the kitchen in the early morning drinking tea with a cat on the table, not saying anything. He was two completely different people. Both of them were completely real.
Armando: (after a beat) Yes. I understand that.
[Armando is very still.]
Delilah, Garden Lodge, the song on Innuendo, the phone calls from tour, Bohemian Rhapsody, and the twenty-one minutes at Live Aid are all real. Her voice is ours.
Sources and further reading
- Delilah and Mercury's cats: names, dedicated albums, phone calls from tour. Peter Freestone, personal assistant, documented accounts of the Mercury household.
- “Bohemian Rhapsody,” released October 31, 1975; length, structure, label and radio resistance; Kenny Everett's fourteen plays in one weekend. Documented music history.
- Live Aid, Wembley Stadium, July 13, 1985; twenty-one minute set; audience and broadcast figures; the call-and-response exchange. Documented Live Aid broadcast history.
- Mercury's death, November 1991, and the private illness he disclosed publicly one day before. Widely documented biographical record.
All historical claims above were checked in the Talking With Pets accuracy review, most recently the full editorial pass of July 2026.
Did Freddie Mercury really have a cat named Delilah?
Yes. Delilah was one of several cats Mercury kept at Garden Lodge in Kensington, and he later wrote a song named for her. He dedicated Queen albums to his cats by name and, according to accounts from his personal assistant Peter Freestone, called home from tour and had staff hold the phone up to Delilah so she could hear his voice. Source: Peter Freestone's documented accounts of the Mercury household.
Why was Bohemian Rhapsody considered unusual for its time?
Released in October 1975, it ran nearly six minutes, twice the length of a standard single, with no conventional chorus and three distinct musical sections. Record label and radio programmers said it was too long for radio. DJ Kenny Everett played an advance copy and got so many listener requests that he played it fourteen times in one weekend. Source: documented music history.
What made the Live Aid performance so famous?
On July 13, 1985, Queen played a twenty-one minute set at Wembley Stadium in front of 72,000 people, broadcast to an estimated 1.9 billion viewers worldwide. The set, including a famous call-and-response vocal exchange with the crowd, is regularly ranked as the greatest live rock performance ever recorded. Source: documented Live Aid broadcast history.
Is this episode too heavy for kids?
This episode, part of the Older Kids tier for ages 9 to 12, spends nearly all of its time on the music and the person. Near the very end, it gently and briefly acknowledges that Mercury died in November 1991 after keeping his illness private, without naming the illness and without any difficult detail, and then returns to the warm kitchen memory the episode wants to leave the listener with.
What is Our Next Collar, and is this episode good for kids?
Our Next Collar is an educational history podcast where a brown tabby cat named Prince MoRee reaches the pets of history, and one of them tells the true story of the person they knew. The core episodes are for ages 6 to 10, and this one is part of the Older Kids tier for ages 9 to 12, for families ready to go a little deeper. Every episode lists its sources and says plainly which parts are real and which are ours. It is a podcast from Talking With Pets.
Our Next Collar · the true stories only the animals saw.
Chaco, Roxie, Moose, Prince MoRee, and Armando are getting the pilot ready. Join the founding list and we will write to you when the first episodes go live. Listen with someone you like.