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Queen fan Baek Soon Yeob (left) and Kim Pan Jun, chairman of South Korea's Queen Forever fan club
Photo: ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP
A life-size statue of frontman Freddie Mercury was unveiled on the South Korean resort island of Jeju on Thursday after years of struggle by a die-hard fan of British band Queen.
The 50 million won bronze statue stands on the Jeju waterfront.
According to the AFP news agency, the work of art was paid for by South Korean businessman Baek Soon Yeob.
Other Queen fans also came to Jeju for the inauguration.
Queen guitarist Brian May said in a video message that "in spirit" he was there when the statue was unveiled.
He was sure that the singer would have liked the monument to Mercury with his fist raised in the sky.
"I know he would have been happy about that," May said.
Years of email requests
Baek had emailed the Queen's rights marketing company every month since 2014 to seek approval for erecting the Mercury statue, he told AFP.
In early 2020, he finally got an answer.
Ahead of Queen's first ever South Korean concert, the band and their record company representatives agreed to meet with Baek in Seoul.
The fact that the concert took place was a result of the Oscar-winning Queen biopic »Bohemian Rhapsody« in South Korea.
Almost ten million of the 51 million inhabitants watched the film starring Rami Malek in the cinema.
In the 1970s, Queen's music was banned by then-military dictator Park Chung Hee.
Baek later discovered them for himself and became a fan. The songs by Freddie Mercury, who died of AIDS in 1991, "driven him despite many obstacles," said the 57-year-old.
For the erection of the Mercury statue, Baek also had to overcome a number of obstacles.
Some have criticized him for erecting a "statue of a homosexual."
According to Baek, he hopes that the memorial will “make those who are critical of sexual minorities to reconsider their attitude”.
ime/AFP