Brian May has mostly left the wilder parts of his rock star days behind him, but even his gentler lifestyle has left him needing medical attention. On May 6, 2020, he revealed on Instagram that a couple of days earlier, “I managed to rip my Gluteus Maximus to shreds in a moment of over-enthusiastic gardening.”
The injury turned out to be worse than May and his doctors thought. In a later Instagram video, he said that a week after the accident, he was still in agonizing back pain. Another MRI revealed that he had a “quite severely compressed” sciatic nerve, which he received treatment for. “I’m a lot better now. I’m actually free of that terrible pain,” he clarified.
During all this, Brian May had what he described as a small heart attack. “It’s not something that did me any harm,” he said in the post, explaining that he experienced chest pains and tightness, a sensation in the arms, and sweating — common heart attack symptoms — for about 40 minutes. It was determined that he had three blocked arteries. He passed on open heart surgery, instead having three stents put in. He said he’s back on form and thanked the doctors who operated on him “from the bottom of my heart” — literally.