Queen guitarist Brian May has rarely discussed his first marriage to Chrissie Mullen, but when he has, he has always spoken fondly of her. The couple married on May 29, 1976, at St. Osmund's Roman Catholic Church in Barnes, London, as Queen prepared to record their fifth album, A Day at the Races. They had three children before divorcing in 1988. May has been married to actress Anita Dobson since 2000.
Early Days and Happiness
May met Mullen in 1968, before Queen was formed, when he was still in the band Smile. In a 2010 interview with The Guardian, he described their early life together as “probably the happiest time of my life.” He recalled living with Mullen in a tiny bedsit, surviving on “cod in a bag” with just one gas ring and “no problems in life.”
Family Tensions and Touring Life
In 2014, May revealed that their living arrangements caused a rift with his father, who disapproved of his decision to drop his studies and live with Mullen before marriage. “He also hated the fact that I was living with a woman, who turned out to be my first wife, Chrissie. He thought it was immoral,” May said. The couple did not speak for nearly two years as Queen’s career took off.
During their marriage, May’s demanding schedule of recording and touring made family life challenging. In a 2017 interview with The Times, he noted the lack of modern communication: “There were no mobile phones, and phone calls were incredibly expensive if you were on the other side of the world. There was this feeling that life on the road was a separate bubble from your life back home.”
The Marriage Breakdown
Ironically, it was not the touring that ended the marriage but the periods at home. In a 1998 interview with OK magazine, May explained: “It's very hard to adapt back to normal life. I was married, and I had kids, and the marriage survived the whole touring life really well. It was only when I stopped touring that things fell apart, because we couldn't adapt to living 'a normal life.'”
May admitted he had fallen in love with Anita Dobson but struggled with guilt. “People thought I’d defined myself in terms of being a rock star, but I defined myself as a husband and a dad, above everything else,” he confessed, calling it a very low point. He said he could not “allow” himself to be with Dobson because he was “imbued with morality and guilt and stuff.”
Media Intrusion and Privacy
After the divorce, May expressed anger at media coverage of the split. “The worst time is when you're getting divorced. They love some hint of marital strife. It was appalling, utter misery for my ex-wife and children,” he said.
