THE BEAST

In a new Instagram video, Queen guitarist Brian May revealed that he had suffered a "small heart attack" that left him "very near death" following a recent gardening accident.

The musician had previously announced that he "managed to rip" his Gluteus Maximus "to shreds in a moment of over-enthusiastic gardening," resulting in a trip to the hospital.

Brian said he "did a thorough job" of damaging himself and that he would not be able to walk or sleep "without a lot of assistance - because the pain is relentless."

The guitarist explained that it took two MRIs to discover the nerve damage that caused the agonizing pain, which felt like "putting a screwdriver in my back." May added that what the doctors later discovered "shocked" him, saying (transcribed by UG):

"In the middle of the whole saga of the painful backside, I had a small heart attack.

"And I say small - 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.

"To cut a rather long story short, my wonderful doctor drove me to the hospital himself and I went straight into what they call the 'CAT room,' I think, and I had an angiogram.

"And that's when they stick something in your wrist and it goes all the way up to your heart and into arteries in your heart, and it can find out in a way that nothing else can.

"And they looked at me - 'cause you're conscious while they do it - and they said, 'Brian, we're sorry but this is a bit more complicated than we thought.'"

Brian added that it turned out he had "three arteries that were congested and in danger of blocking the supply of blood to my heart."

May added that he turned down open heart surgery despite "a lot of pressure" from several sides and instead opted to have three stents put in, also as suggested by some doctors.

Brian also addressed the headlines and Twitter jokes that made fun of his buttock injury, saying:

"I didn't realize that was amusing, really. I kind of forgot that anything to do with the bum people find amusing, so I got a bit pissed off with all the 'Brian May gets a pain in the bum' kind of stuff."