Queen guitarist Brian May says he recently had minor stroke

Musician assured fans he was recovering and able to play music again after ‘health hiccup’

Brian May - The Badger Cull and Me follows the lead guitarist of Queen as he campaigns for a change in approach to badger culling. Photograph: BBC
Brian May in his recent BBC documentary: The Badger Cull and Me. Photograph: BBC

The Queen guitarist Brian May has revealed he recently had a minor stroke that left him unable to use his left arm.

The band’s lead guitarist and astrophysicist announced he had experienced a “health hiccup” last week but reassured fans he was recovering and able to play music again after being temporarily unable to control his limb.

“The good news is that I can play guitar,” May said in a video shared on his website on Wednesday. “It was in some doubt because that little health hiccup that I mentioned happened about a week ago, and what they called it was a minor stroke and all of a sudden, out of the blue, I didn’t have any control over this arm, so it was a little scary.”

May said he was resting, unable to drive and fly, or have planes flying overhead he joked as one could be heard in the video recorded outdoors.

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“I really don’t want sympathy,” said the musician. “Please don’t do that because it will clutter up my inbox and I hate that.”

The disclosure came weeks after the documentary Brian May: The Badgers, the Farmers and Me aired on BBC Two, as the musician fronts a decades-long campaign to end the culling of badgers.

In his video, May said: “The other news is our documentary has been very much in our minds and we had some great reactions from farmers particularly. It’s no surprise to me that 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.” – Guardian

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