Meet LAJ: the writer who uncovers the real stories in rock journalism
Hi, I'm Lesley-Ann Jones, the internationally best-selling author of Love, Freddie.
But you can call me LAJ...
My previous rock biographies include Love Of My Life, The Life and Loves of Freddie Mercury; Hero: David Bowie; Fly Away Paul: How McCartney survived the Beatles, found his Wings and became a solo superstar; The Stone Age: Sixty Years of the Rolling Stones; Songbird: An Intimate Biography of Christine McVie (Fleetwood Mac) and many other original music biographies.
I honed my craft on London’s Fleet Street as a national newspaper journalist.
I was a former staff writer on the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, YOU Magazine, the Sun and the News of the World, as well as contributing as a freelance to many other titles including the Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Sunday Times, the Independent and the Daily Express.
I began my career during the early 1980s as an intern at London’s Capital Radio.
At Chrysalis Records, I worked with Debbie Harry and Blondie, Spandau Ballet, Leo Sayer and other artists.
At the inception of Channel 4 television, I became a co-presenter of music magazine show Ear-Say before sidestepping into journalism full-time.
It was as a reporter that I became directly involved in three of the most explosive celebrity stories of the age: Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman’s affair with schoolgirl Mandy Smith, Hugh Grant’s arrest in Los Angeles following a dalliance with a prostitute, and Gary Glitter’s exposure as a paedophile.
I have contributed to dozens of music-led documentaries around the world, and makes regular appearances on radio and podcasts.
I am the lead contributor in the groundbreaking new feature-length documentary Freddie Mercury: A Secret Daughter? produced by Honey Bee Media for C5 and distributed internationally by Paramount+.
Love, Freddie: Freddie Mercury's Secret Life and Love
‘The showbiz book of the year' - Daily Mail
In this tender and compassionate study, LAJ immerses herself in the Queen frontman’s own mind-blowing revelations about his life and loves, which he recorded over a period of fifteen years in 17 handwritten notebooks.
He gave them to his hitherto secret daughter four months before his death in 1991. Thirty years later, the woman approached LAJ to share their content with her.
The result of their four-year collaboration is this unique book. Freddie’s daughter, known only as ‘B.’, makes clear that the world never knew the artist’s true nature.
Behind the flamboyant rock star lurked a cripplingly shy man who had endured much upheaval in his life, including a terrible separation from his family at the age of eight, sexual abuse at the hands of a school master in India, running for his life from Zanzibar at the age of seventeen during the 1964 revolution, and the gradual realisation that he was bisexual.
His confession to his fiancée Mary Austin led to a reckless period during which he abandoned himself to mindless gay flings with countless partners, risking his life. Diagnosed as HIV positive in 1987, he went on to develop full-blown AIDS.
His relationship with his daughter, conducted virtually under the noses of loved ones who were unaware of her existence, he would later describe his child as the greatest achievement of his life.
Why did she wait so long before coming forward and telling his truth? It was time, she explained, before it got too late. She has spoken to prevent her father’s incredible true story from being lost forever...