Freddie Mercury didn't sing 'of the world' at the end of 'We Are the Champions'?

Ever since Queen's "We Are the Champions" debuted in 1977, many people have punctuated their renditions of the song with a passionate "of the world." But is that really how it ends? 

Many remembered the song as having three instances of the lyric — one at the end each chorus. However, some listeners, after revisiting the song on vinyl and on music-streaming platforms such as Spotify, noticed that the final "of the world" was nowhere to be found. For years, numerous posts and articles spread online, chalking the discrepancy up to a so-called Mandela Effect, a term Snopes has defined as "a collective misremembering of a fact or event."

For example, in October 2023 a TikTok user shared a video (archived) of the original recording of the song on vinyl, aiming to prove that the song never ended with "of the world." 

@blackcirclerecordssc The Mandela effect of Queen - We Are The Champions Does Freddie Mercury sing the lyrics "of the world" at the end of the song? #mandelaeffect #queen #wearethechampions #oftheworld #vinyltok ♬ original sound - Rob D | Black Circle Records

A Medium user also picked up the claim, featuring it in a story with the title "The Great 'We Are the Champions' Controversy: Did Queen Really Leave Out 'Of the World'?" and laying out the discrepancy as follows:

The iconic Queen anthem "We Are the Champions" has been a staple of sports arenas, concerts, and personal victory celebrations since its release in 1977. Its triumphant melody and powerful lyrics have made it a defining moment for many listeners, but a peculiar controversy surrounds the song's ending. Millions of fans worldwide remember the final line as concluding with the phrase "of the world." Yet, in the original recording, this iconic line is noticeably absent. Instead, the song simply trails off after Freddie Mercury sings "We are the champions."

The claim even appeared in an academic journal article, "The Mandela Effect and New Memory," by the religious studies scholar Aaron French, who researched online conspiracy theories during his graduate studies at the University of California, Davis. The article identified the lyric discrepancy as an example of the supposed jump between dimensions that some internet users have claimed causes the Mandela Effect (though there is no scientific evidence in favor of this theory):

Another song lyric alteration is the final line from the Queen song We are the Champions (1977), in which Freddy Mercury sings "… of the world" at the end. Now he doesn't sing that line; the song just ends.

The case seemed cut-and-dried: People who remembered the song ending with "of the world" were experiencing a Mandela Effect. The reality, though, was not so simple. Yes, the original 1977 recording, the remastered recording from 2011, and even an outtake of Queen's "We Are the Champions" all ended without "of the world." The phrase was even absent from the end of the official lyric video (archived) for the song, which the band uploaded to YouTube in 2017:

However, the lyric was actually included in an official capacity on multiple occasions. For this reason, we determined that the claim Queen frontman Freddie Mercury does not sing "of the world" at the end of "We Are the Champions" contained a mixture of true and false information. 

In other words, the discrepancy was not a true example of the Mandela Effect, since Mercury did actually sing the lyric people were "misremembering" on multiple occasions, including in a famous live recording from 1985's Live Aid concert.

Official 'of the world' inclusions

The original vinyl release of "News of the World" and its later reprints contained an inner sleeve with the lyrics of each song from the album. The line "of the world —" appeared at the end of "We Are the Champions" in both versions. We reached out to the label that published the album in the U.K., EMI Records, to confirm the authenticity of the lyrics on the inner sleeve. We also reached out to band member Brian May to ask for an explanation of the discrepancy between the written lyrics and the recording. We will update this article if we receive any response.

Below is an image of the song's lyrics from a reprint listed on German record store Devinylhunter Records' website. We compared images of numerous copies of the original record on the record marketplace Discogs with images of the reprint, and found the lyrics appeared the same in all instances. We opted to use an image of the reprint because of its higher resolution (for readability, we created a side-by-side collage of the top and bottom halves of the lyrics):

(Devinylhunter Records)

There are also recordings of the lyric being included during concerts. For example, Mercury sang "of the world" at the end of his famous performance of the song (archived) as part of the 1985 Live Aid concert, which musician Bob Geldof organized as a fundraiser for relief efforts for the famine then occurring in Ethiopia. A video of that performance on the official Live Aid YouTube page, uploaded in 2019, garnered over 58 million views:

On Sept. 6, 2023, Sotheby's auctioned Mercury's handwritten draft working lyrics for "We Are the Champions." The auction house only released one image of a single page of these lyrics, which provided no further evidence of whether Mercury intended the song to end with "of the world." 

We reached out to Sotheby's to ask if it could provide images or descriptions of the contents of any other relevant pages, and will update this article if we receive a response. The identity of the individual who purchased the lyrics was not public information.

'We Are the Champions' in popular media

In addition to the written lyrics and live performances that ended with "of the world," references to the song in popular media and remixes that featured the lyric at the end likely contributed to the line's association with the song in public consciousness.

Crazy Frog, a "computer generated, animated amphibian clad in a leather motorcycle cap and goggles" created by animator Erik Wernquist, released a remixed version (archived) of the song in 2009 that amassed over 560 million views. The video ended with a chorus of Crazy Frogs singing "of the world."

A rendition of the song by the titular character of the 2005 film "Chicken Little," which grossed over $314 million worldwide, also ended with the lyric (archived).

There are many more examples of versions of the song in pop culture that include the line at the end, including one (archived) performed by a large list of celebrities on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon." Millions of people viewed these examples, which may have been the first exposure many had to the song. As a result, versions including the line cemented themselves as part of the song's history and may have proven more memorable to some than the original recording of the song itself. They likely helped reinforce the idea that the song always ends with "of the world."

Snopes previously checked a similarly complicated claim about the lyrics of the popular holiday song "I'll Be Home for Christmas."