Brian May, the guitarist for the legendary British rock group Queen, blasted the “predatory” press for “subtly twisting” his criticism of left-wing cancel culture to make it seem that he opposes transgenderism.

In a Sunday post to Instagram, May slammed the British press for misleading fans about the point he was making last week when he spoke to the Daily Mirror about the recent changes eliminating “male” and “female” categories for the British Record Industry Trusts (BRIT) Awards show. According to the BRIT announcement, all recording artists will be treated equally in competition for award categories and the awards will not be separated out into male and female groupings.

May said he felt “ambushed” by the “predatory Press hacks” of the Mirror and in no way intended to make it look like he was “unfriendly to trans people.”

“Yes – I was ambushed and completely stitched up by a journalist at the recent ITV event,” May wrote on his November 28 Instagram post. “And it’s led to a whole mess of press stories making it look like I’m unfriendly to trans people. Nothing could be further from the truth. My words were subtly twisted. I should have known better than to talk to those predatory Press hacks.”

“Sincere apologies to anyone who has been hurt by the stories. My heart is open as always to humans of all colors, all creeds, all sexes and sexualities, all shapes and sizes – and all creatures. We all deserve respect and an equal place in this world. And my grateful thanks to all of you who stepped up to defend me in the last couple of days. It means so much that you have faith in me,” he said.

May’s doubling back on the interview came after he told the paper that he thought the effort to eliminate “male” and “female” categories was a foolish example of cancel culture wokeism, and the decision was made “without enough thought.”

But it was his casual insertion of transgenderism that caused a ruckus.

May told the paper that Freddie Mercury — a bi-sexual man from Africa’s Zanzibar who died of AIDS in 1996 — would have found today’s woke cancel culture “difficult.”

“Freddie came from Zanzibar, he wasn’t British, he wasn’t white as such – nobody cares, nobody ever, ever discussed it,” he said. “He was a musician, he was our friend, he was our brother. We didn’t have to stop and think: ‘Ooh, now, should we work with him? Is he the right color? Is he the right sexual proclivity?’ None of that happened.'”

May added that today his own famed band would not be considered diverse enough.

“I find it frightening that you have to be so calculating about everything,” May exclaimed. “We would be forced to have people of different colors, and different sexes, and we would have to have a trans [person]. You know life doesn’t have to be like that. We can be separate and different.”

“A lot of things work quite well and can be left alone,” May added. “I get so sick of people trying to change things without thinking of the long-term consequences. Some of these things are an improvement, some of them are not.”

Finally, the guitarist bemoaned the “atmosphere of fear everywhere because people are afraid to say how they really think,” and concluded saying that, “so many people are feeling ‘hang on, this isn’t quite right.’ But they don’t dare say anything. Eventually there will be some kind of explosion.”

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