Queen Guitarist Brian May Says Wife Anita ‘Saved His Life’ After Complications From Heart Attack ‘Nearly’ Killed Him

Queen guitarist Brian May is crediting his “incredible” wife Anita with saving his life after he suffered a heart attack earlier this year. The 73-year-old revealed in May that the health scare had left him “very near death” and that he had to undergo surgery to have three stents placed, and now, he says that he is now “forever in debt” to his wife.

Speaking with the Express, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer opened up about the complications he experienced after his hospitalization, something that he dubbed “the hardest” and “the worst” thing of his health scare. Explaining that he was doing “very, very poorly,” he said that the medication he had to take “nearly killed me – much more than the heart attack.” Recalling how he could “hardly crawl across the floor” for about a month, he praised his wife for caring for him.

“She was incredible. She totally saved my life because I couldn’t do anything and she just kind of nursed me, so I will forever be in her debt,” May told the outlet of Anita, whom he married in 2000. “She did an incredible job on me.”

May is now recovering at home, where he takes part in a daily “heart cardio rehab program,” which involves “about an hour and a half of various kinds of exercises to recondition the heart,” all under the careful watch of his wife, who will “always tell me if she thinks I’m doing things wrong.” May said that he believes it will be “another couple of months to get back up to full strength,” though he noted that he is “doing pretty well” and even “got a gold star from my physio man the other day.” However, he isn’t completely out of the woods just yet, and he may need to undergo another procedure, as his “heart is like 95% great now but there is a 5% piece of it which might need attention, so we’ll see. I’m going to take a view in three months’ time.”

Reflecting on his health scare, May, who said that he was “the fittest person on that last Queen tour we did,” said that he has at least one theory as to what led to his heart attack. Noting that he “didn’t tick any of the boxes to get a heart attack” – he “did biking every morning,” never smoked, and doesn’t typically eat “fatty food” – May said he believes a possible bout with coronavirus could have led to his health emergency.

“I have one theory, which is: I’m conscious that I had a pretty bad cough most of the way through that tour. And some of the time I felt pretty grim and I thought I was just feeling tired,” he said. “I think it’s possible that I had the Covid virus early on in the tour of Korea, Japan and Australia in January, and got through it, but it’s thickened the blood, which apparently it does, and that could have been the trigger that gave me the heart attack.”