"Freddie Mercury was - and remains - my biggest influence."

"I'm releasing my inner Freddie Mercury. It's hard to explain but parts of the show are so over the top. When I sing Your Disco Needs You, it's a real Freddie moment."

"Freddie Mercury was an incredibly innovative singer and frontman for the band. He was a very good friend of mine and it was my privelege to have known him for some of his life. He was very funny, extremely outrageous, very kind and he was a great musician, one of the great frontmen of rock'n'roll bands... Quite simply, he was one of the most important figures in rock'n'roll in the last twenty years. I will miss him, we will all miss him, for his music, his humanity...We will remember that Freddie Mercury was something special."

"I didn't know Freddie. I only met him twice, but he had such a profound affect on me as a child. I was such a total worshiper of his music. I kinda drank in everything that he did."

"He was a very special person to me. Freddie was probably the most creative individual I ever met, and he was really fun. He had a great zest for life. He was also very unselfish and very caring. He put himself out to work with me and it was phenomenal experience."

"If I didn't have Freddie Mercury's words and lyrics to hold onto as a kid, I don't know where I'd be...I never really had a bigger teacher in my whole life."

"He was a 'scene-queen', not afraid to publicly express his gayness but unwilling to analyse or justify his lifestyle... It was as if Freddie Mercury was saying to the world, 'I am what I am. So what?' And that in itself was a statement"

"Freddie was one of the elite few who could really set a stadium alight. Along with millions of fans throughout the world I will miss his exceptional performance and brilliant voice."

"Freddie Mercury was the very acceptable and positive side of pompous and big. He was like a male version of Liza Minnelli. He was this big, old character that was larger than life. I imagine the closest thing you'll ever get to Freddie Mercury is Wrestlemania, and that's including the show, the building, the people inside it and the ring!"

"This is a tragedy. I admired Freddie as a performer and for his honesty in admiting he had AIDS. It is all so sad."