Meanwhile, Akasha, who is searching for Lestat, arrives at The Admiral's Arms. Marius also reveals that Lestat's new music has awakened Akasha and begs him to cancel his concert, which he refuses.

In Los Angeles, Lestat is visited by Marius, who warns him that the other vampires will not tolerate his flamboyant public profile. Unsatisfied with what she read, Jesse tracks Lestat down to a London vampire club called The Admiral's Arms, where he saves her from three vampires and confronts her about Marius. In the journal, Lestat recalls how he was turned into a vampire by Marius and how he awoke Akasha, the first vampire, with his music. David also shows her Lestat's journal that he recovered and gives it to Jesse for her to read on the condition that she promises not to pursue Lestat. Her mentor, David Talbot, takes her aside and tells her they know what he is and that a vampire called Marius made him. Jesse Reeves, a researcher for the paranormal studies group Talamasca, is intrigued by Lestat's lyrics after hearing one of his songs play on TV and tells the rest of the group her theory that he really is a vampire.

Achieving international success, Lestat, having revealed the existence of vampires, taunts the others of his kind during an interview for promoting his first and only live concert. The vampire Lestat is awakened from decades of slumber by the sound of a hard rock band, and proceeds to take over as their lead singer. The film received mostly negative reviews from critics and was a box-office bomb, grossing just over $45 million against a $35 million production budget. Queen of the Damned was released in the United States on February 22, 2002, and in Australia on April 4, by Warner Bros.

The film is dedicated to Aaliyah, who died in a plane crash on August 25, 2001, after she had shot all her scenes. Townsend and Matthew Newton replaced Tom Cruise and Antonio Banderas in the roles of Lestat and Armand, respectively. A stand-alone sequel to Interview with the Vampire (1994), the film stars Stuart Townsend, Aaliyah (in her final film role), Marguerite Moreau, Vincent Pérez, and Lena Olin. Queen of the Damned is a 2002 horror film directed by Michael Rymer from a screenplay by Scott Abbott and Michael Petroni, based on the 1988 novel The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice, the third novel of the book series The Vampire Chronicles, although the film contains many plot elements from the novel's 1985 predecessor, The Vampire Lestat.