3 Times Keith Richards Insulted Mick Jagger

The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards has made withering comments about a number of other celebrities, but he reserves a lot of his ire for his longtime collaborator Mick Jagger. Jagger and Richards work well together, but they don’t always get along. This became exceedingly apparent after Richards published his memoir Life, in which he chronicled their complicated relationship. Richards and Jagger continue to work together in The Rolling Stones. Still, Richards has insulted him multiple times.

Keith Richards said Mick Jagger became ‘unbearable’

Richards and Jagger met as teenagers and formed The Rolling Stones together in 1962. By the 1980s, Richards said that their relationship had begun to erode. He started to find Jagger challenging to be around. Because of this, he gave Jagger nicknames so that he could talk about him without it being obvious.

“It was the beginning of the Eighties when Mick started to become unbearable,” he wrote in Life, per the New York Post. “That’s when he became Brenda, or Her Majesty, or just Madam.”

He believed Jagger had changed for the worse.

“I used to love Mick, but I haven’t been to his dressing room in 20 years,” he wrote. “Sometimes I think, ‘I miss my friend.’ I wonder, ‘Where did he go?'”

He made fun of his bandmate’s body

In Life, Richards also took a shot at a certain aspect of Jagger’s physical appearance. He did so in a section describing his girlfriend Anita Pallenberg’s affair with Jagger.

“The idea of status quo to Anita, in those days, was verboten. Everything must change. And we’re not married, we’re free, whatever. You’re free as long as you let me know what’s going on,” Richards wrote. “Anyway, she had no fun with his tiny todger. I know he’s got an enormous pair of balls, but it doesn’t quite fill the gap, does it?”

Keith Richards said Mick Jagger was too old to be a father

In 2018, Jagger had recently become a father, a fact that made Richards roll his eyes.

“Mick’s a randy old bastard,” he told The Wall Street Journal. “It’s time for the snip — you can’t be a father at that age. Those poor kids!”

Ultimately, though, he swiftly apologized for his comments. 

“I deeply regret the comments I made about Mick in the WSJ which were completely out of line,” Richards tweeted. “I have of course apologised to him in person.”

Even with his apology, it doesn’t seem like Richards will stop insulting him. He believed that their relationship thrived off a certain degree of conflict.

“Mick and I live off of this fire between us,” he said.

 He also said they were too much like brothers to ever wholly get along.

“Mick and I may not be friends — too much wear and tear for that — but we’re the closest of brothers, and that can’t be severed,” he wrote in Life. “How can you describe a relationship that goes that far back? Best friends are best friends. But brothers fight.”