While some commentators claimed Mercury hid his sexual orientation from the public, others claimed he was “openly gay.” In December 1974, when asked directly, “So how about being bent?” by the New Musical Express, Mercury replied, “You’re a crafty cow. Let’s put it this way; there were times when I was young and green. It’s a thing schoolboys go through. I’ve had my share of schoolboy pranks. I’m not going to elaborate further.” Homosexual acts between adult males over the age of 21 were decriminalised in the United Kingdom in 1967, only seven years earlier. In the 1980s, he would often distance himself from his partner, Jim Hutton, during public events. In October 1986, The Sun claimed Mercury had “confessed to a string of one-night gay sex affairs.”