Queen's Brian May Says Wife Anita Dobson 'Totally Saved My Life' Following Heart Attack

Adam Lambert Says Queen's Brian May Is 'Doing Better' Following Heart Attack

"That kind of thing takes a minute to recover from, but I am so glad that he is okay," Adam Lambert said of Brian May

Brian May is thankful for his wife Anita Dobson after recovering from the “small heart attack” he suffered earlier this year.

Talking to the Daily Express, the Queen guitarist, 73, talked about the key role his wife, 71, played in his recovery — and how he thinks he might have had coronavirus prior to the attack.

“She was incredible," he told the British outlet. "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, she did an incredible job on me."

After having three small ‘stent’ tubes inserted into his blocked arteries to maintain the flow of blood following the heart attack, the London Road actress has helped him adopt a daily fitness routine. (The two have been married for 20 years.)

May also told the outlet that he had a "theory" that he may have had COVID-19 while Queen was on a worldwide tour.

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David Fisher/BAFTA/Shutterstock

YELIM LEE/AFP via Getty Brian May in January

"I had a pretty bad cough most of the way through that tour,” he told the outlet, before adding, “Some of the time I felt pretty grim and I thought I was just feeling tired."

“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," he continued. “I thought it was too early to get [COVID] but the evidence now seems to be that the virus was around.”

May first revealed that he suffered a heart attack in an Instagram post a month after he endured a painful gardening accident that tore his butt muscles to "shreds."

"I could not believe the pain," the musician said in a video posted on May 25, before going on to reveal that he had a "small heart attack" amid the process of treating the pain in his backside.

"It's not something that did me any harm. It was about 40 minutes of pain in the chest and tightness and that feeling in the arms and sweating," he explained. "Long story short, my wonderful doctor drove me to the hospital himself."

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Brian May/Instagram Brian May is taking great care during the coronavirus pandemic

With COVID-19 rates gradually spiking throughout the UK and Europe, the legendary Queen guitarist is now going to extreme lengths to make sure he's as isolated from the virus as possible.

“Coronavirus is scary,” he said. “I am being ultra-careful, me and Anita both, I’ve hardly been anywhere and I’m still treating myself as if I’m shielding.”

“Sometimes if I’ve been depressed about things – and one does get depressed about the present situation – just that thing of getting on the bike every morning is a real positive thread for me, it’s a moment for me to get in tune with my body and it’s good for the brain, it’s good for the soul," he added.

One thing is absolutely certain too: while May is doing all he can to stay fit and healthy, he's also keen to follow the example of late bandmate Freddie Mercury and maintain a sense of humor about the whole thing.

“I think of him every day," May told the Express. "He would be sort of smiling wickedly, making little cracks. He had a very fatalistic attitude, he’d be saying, ‘Well, darling, we can only do what we can do.'"

“Freddie was spared a lot of bad stuff, wasn’t he?" he added. "The world’s a very difficult place to live in at the moment.”

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