A 4FT 2IN actor claims Freddie Mercury hired him to appear at a party so he could snort cocaine off the top of his head. Kiran Shah, who was Elijah Wood’s stunt double in the Lord of the Rings films, revealed the Queen frontman asked him to wear a turban containing a bowl of the Class A drug.

The diminutive actor claims Freddie hired him for a bash after Queen’s 1986 gig at Wembley, where the band performed hits including Another One Bites the Dust.

Kiran, 67, who holds the Guinness World Record for the shortest professional film stuntman, says he was “painted orange and dressed like a sultan” in a suit and had to wear “a turban with a hole in the top”.

He said: “I had no idea why the hole was there [but] just before the party started, a huge bowl of cocaine was placed in it.” Kiran, who also played an ewok in Return of the Jedi, said he was “very popular” with partygoers, but did not take the drugs himself.

Guests at the bash, at Kensington Roof Gardens in West London, included The Who’s bassist John Entwistle – who died from a cocaine-induced heart attack in 2002. Freddie died from an Aids-related illness in 1991.