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Queen’s Brian May apologizes after defending Bryan Singer

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Queen may be the champions of the world, but is guitarist Brian May also a champion of Bryan Singer?

After The Atlantic published more accounts from men who said Singer had raped or seduced them while they were underage, May seemingly defended the Hollywood director.

Singer, as you’ll recall, was the original director of Bohemian Rhapsody, the biopic of late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury. He was fired from the production in December 2017 for erratic behavior.

Related: Bryan Singer lands $10 million directing gig despite allegations of sex abuse

Fast forward to this week, when an Instagram commenter told May he should unfollow Singer “after all what he has done.”

“You need to look after your own business and stop telling me what to do,” the rock star clapped back. “And you need to learn to respect the fact that a man or woman is innocent until proven guilty.”

Now, the 71-year-old is issuing a mea culpa.

“I’m so sorry that I responded to your post so snappily and inconsiderately,” he told the commenter. “My response was a result of my perception that someone was telling me what to do, I now realise that I was completely wrong in thinking that. You were actually just trying to protect me, for which I thank you. I am mortified to discover the effect my words produced. I had no idea that saying someone was innocent until proven guilty could be interpreted as ‘defending’ Bryan Singer … I’m so sorry. This must have caused you a lot of upset. I wish I could take the comment back, but all I can do is apologise, and hope that my apology will begin to make amends.”

Related: Rami Malek finally breaks his silence about Bryan Singer’s underage sex scandals

Read his apology in full in the Instagram post below:

View this post on Instagram

Dear Folks – I was shocked and saddened to realise what I had done by my hasty and inconsiderate IG reply to this lady yesterday. I’ve posted an apology to her in the ‘reply’ box, but it seems to have disappeared – so I’m going to try to repeat it here, to be clear. ———- Dear Sue, I’m so sorry that I responded to your post so snappily and inconsiderately. My response was a result of my perception that someone was telling me what to do. I now realise that I was completely wrong in thinking that. You were actually just trying to protect me, for which I thank you. I am mortified to discover the effect my words produced. I had no idea that saying someone was innocent until proven guilty could be interpreted as “defending“ Bryan Singer. I had absolutely no intention of doing that. I guess I must be naive, because also it had never occurred to me that ‘following’ a person on Instagram could be interpreted as approving of that person. The only reason I followed Bryan Singer was that we were working with him on a project. That situation came to an end when Mr Singer was removed during the shooting of the film, but I suppose unfollowing him never occurred to me as a necessity. Now, because of this misunderstanding, I have unfollowed. I’m so sorry. This must have caused you a lot of upset. I wish I could take the comment back, but all I can do is apologise, and hope that my apology will begin to make amends. Sadly, this is all very public, but since I snapped at you in public, it’s only fitting that I should apologise in public. I’m going to try to follow you so we can communicate privately if you want. With love – Bri. —— I should add that this is also a sincere apology to anyone else out there that I inadvertently offended. No such offence was intended and I will be more careful in future. Bri

A post shared by Brian Harold May (@brianmayforreal) on