A rockstar has become a knight of the British monarchy.
Queen guitarist Brian May was recently dubbed a knight by King Charles III for his achievements as a guitarist, environmentalist, and astronomer.
May is one of many people honored on King Charles III's first New Year's honors list, announced on Dec. 2022, with many other notables such as British saxophonist YolanDa Brown, per the Royal Family's official Twitter account.
Brian May Knighthood Details
Brian May, now formally known as Sir Brian May, was knighted on Mar. 14 by his Majesty, the King, in recognition of his 50 years of musical compositions as Queen's lead guitarist and efforts in leading the charge for animal rights, particularly against fox hunting and badger culling, per Space.com.
Unbeknownst to many, Sir May is also an astrophysicist, even during his time touring the world with his fellow Queen band members. He previously attended the Imperial College London for his post-graduate studies, focusing on mathematics and physics. Unfortunately, his responsibilities as Queen's lead guitarist, as well as self-doubt, distracted him from his studies, eventually dropping them in favor of touring as part of Queen in the 1970s.
However, he did circle back to his studies after his touring days with the popular band were over, with him taking up his post-graduate program anew and receiving his doctorate in astrophysics from the same school he dropped out of in 2007, per CNN.
As an astrophysicist, Sir May became active in various space-based projects, with him working on stereoscopic imagery and zodiacal dust. For those unaware, stereoscopic imagery is a technique used for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth for an image by showing two slightly offset images for each eye of the viewer to see, per Techopedia, while zodiacal dust is a thick circumsolar disk consisting of dust particles produced when asteroids collide with each other and comet activity, per Alessandra Rotundi and Vincenzo Della Corte.
Sir May also co-founded Asteroid Day, an event that aims to raise public awareness about the dangers of an asteroid impact on Earth and how to best respond to such an event if it occurs. He even was attached to NASA's New Horizons Pluto mission in 2015, with him being a part of the team behind the fly-by that gave humanity its first clear picture of Pluto and its heart-shaped mark.
May's Reaction To His Knighting
Sir May was already excited about becoming a knight even before the dubbing ceremony. He even said he hoped his new title would give him "a little bit more clout" and that a few more people would listen to him than before thanks to his new title, per USA Today.
His wife, Anita Dobson, is also intrigued at the idea of becoming "Lady May," with Sir May saying that it makes him feel proud she gets an honor beside him because "God knows I wouldn't be here without her."
Interestingly, Sir May wasn't the only Queen member to receive a royal title. Roger Taylor, Queen's Drummer, was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2020, while May previously received the title of Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2005.
