Keith Richards: 'I Snorted My Father'

April 03, 2007, 3:30 PM ET

Keith Richards has acknowledged consuming a raft of illegal substances in his time, but this may top them all. In comments published today (April 2), the 63-year-old Rolling Stones guitarist said he had snorted his father's ashes mixed with cocaine.

"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," Richards was quoted as saying by British music magazine NME. "He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared," he said. "... It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."

Richards' father, Bert, died in 2002, at 84.

Richards, one of rock's legendary wild men, told the magazine that his survival was the result of luck, and advised young musicians against trying to emulate him. "I did it because that was the way I did it. Now people think it's a way of life," he was quoted as saying.

"I've no pretensions about immortality," he added. "I'm the same as everyone ... just kind of lucky. I was No. 1 on the 'who's likely to die' list for 10 years. I mean, I was really disappointed when I fell off the list."

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003566793

wow.

Just when you think you've got good ol' Keith figured out...

I guess that's why Keith Richards can't be killed by conventional weapons.

congrats

*cheers

Agreed.

unbelievable.

do you think it was worse than a pixy stick?

that doesnt even begin to describe my feelings about it

dust to dust.

Huh. The issue of snorting his father's ashes aside, I kind of thought he was off blow and had been for quite some time. Poor, naive me.

http://www.vh1.com/news/articles/1556258/20070403/rolling_stones.jhtml

Did Keith Richards Really Snort His Dad's Ashes? No — It Was A Joke!
Comments made in magazine interview were only 'said in jest,' manager tells MTV News.
by Kurt Loder

Maybe you saw that Keith Richards item that started popping up all over the place on Tuesday (April 3) — the one about how he'd admitted to snorting the ashes of his late father after his body had been cremated? Great story, right? And yet, like so much in the world of celebrity journalism, totally untrue.

In case you missed it, this little yarn first appeared in the pages of London's notoriously unreliable New Musical Express. The magazine quoted the Rolling Stones guitarist as saying, "The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father. He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared. ... It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."

This wildly dubious quote proved irresistible to newspapers, wire services and TV and online outlets on both sides of the Atlantic, from The Associated Press to Forbes, The Drudge Report, Breitbart and E! Online. In fact, it was such a great story that nobody bothered trying to confirm it with a Richards representative — why spoil the fun with facts?

In a buzz-killing mood, though, we decided to check with Richards' longtime manager, Jane Rose. We asked her about the dad-snorting quotes in the NME interview. She responded with an e-mail:

"Said in jest," she explained. "Can't believe anyone took [it] seriously."

Heh, it's front page news here

This is like the inverse of the boy who cried wolf.

That's pretty messed up.

http://www.vh1.com/news/articles/1556258/20070403/rolling_stones.jhtml

Keith Richards Explains: Snorting-Dad's-Ashes Story Was 'Lost In The Usual Slanting

No doubt you've seen the Keith Richards story that exploded across the media on Tuesday — the one where the Rolling Stones guitarist told Britain's New Musical Express that after the death and cremation of his father, Bert, in 2002, he mixed his dad's ashes with some cocaine and snorted them up.

Clearly, this is one of the all-time great rock and roll stories. Unfortunately, it's not true.

It seems to have been either a joke — one that sailed right over the NME interviewer's head — or a misunderstanding of Richards' famously hard-to-parse verbal style.

In any event, this dodgy quote was picked up by a horde of newspapers, wire services and TV and online outlets on both sides of the Atlantic, among them Reuters, Forbes, Google, Breitbart and the Drudge Report. And evidently, none of them attempted to confirm the story with a Richards representative.

MTV News took the novel step of contacting Richards' manager, who responded with what sounded like a sigh, but was in fact an e-mail. The dad-snorting story, she explained, was, quote, "said in jest ... [I] can't believe anyone took [it] seriously."

And now, this just in from Keith Richards himself, who says, "The complete story is lost in the usual slanting." As for the actual use to which his father's ashes were put, he said, "The truth of the matter is that I planted a sturdy English Oak. I took the ... ashes [and sprinkled them beneath the tree], and he is now growing oak trees and he would love me for it!"

As for the ashes-and-cocaine-snorting story he told to the NME, Richards said, "I was trying to say how tight Bert and I were — that tight!

"I wouldn't take cocaine at this point in my life," he added, "unless I wished to commit suicide."