Freddie Mercury's alleged secret daughter says she "didn't want to share my dad with the whole world"

She says in the tome - titled Love, Freddie - she struggled with the public mourning for the singer when she was 15 years old, explaining she had to face "attacks against him" and "misrepresentations" of his life while privately grieving for her father.

An extract from the book, due to be published in September and which was obtained by the Daily Mail, said: "I cried and mourned my Dad, while fans all around the world mourned Freddie.

"For 30 years I had to build my life and family without him and accept that he wouldn't be there to share the happy moments with us.

"For 30 years, while the rest of the world was reinterpreting Mercury's life, his music and all that he had been, I needed to have my dad just for me and my family. How could I have spoken before?"

B issued a statement after learning that Mary Austin - Mercury's close friend, former fiancée and major beneficiary of his estate - is alleged to have said she did not know B existed.

Mary, now 73, has rarely spoken publicly in recent years, but is understood to have cast doubt on B's account in an interview with a Sunday newspaper.

B said: "I am devastated by Mary Austin's alleged response.

"For 34 years, the truth of Freddie's life has been distorted, twisted and rewritten, but she said nothing - with the exception of her comment about the movie Bohemian Rhapsody, which she called 'artistic licence'."

According to the book, B was conceived during a brief relationship Freddie had in 1976 with the wife of a close friend, a year after Bohemian Rhapsody became a hit.

In its first chapter, B writes: "Freddie Mercury was and is my father. We had a very close and loving relationship from the moment I was born and throughout the final 15 years of his life... he cherished me like a treasured possession."