Keith Richards Threatened to Go After Donald Trump Using a Knife
Over the years, Keith Richards has relied on a knife as a way to get his point firmly across. At a Rolling Stones concert in the 1980s, he even threatened to go after Donald Trump with the weapon. Richards and the rest of the band were unhappy with Trump’s presence at a concert venue. After their tour producer struggled to get Trump to leave, Richards offered to take matters into his own hands.
Keith Richards made his unhappiness with Donald Trump clear by pulling out a knife
In 1989, The Rolling Stones put on a pay-per-view concert in Atlantic City. Tour producer Michael Cohl booked the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino as the venue, but the band was uncertain whether they wanted to be associated with Trump. As a result, Cohl made sure to include the stipulation that Trump could not promote the show himself or attend the concert in the contract.
“The Stones had such power in those days that the 6:40 p.m. slot on the national evening news was going to be an interview with the Stones to talk about and promote the pay-per-view,” Cohl said, per Vanity Fair. “At about 5:50 p.m. I get word that I have to come to the press room in the next building. I run to the press room in the next building and what do you think is happening? There’s Donald Trump giving a press conference, in our room!”
Cohl requested that Trump honor the contract, but he refused, saying that the band had begged him to go on. Given their reaction, though, it seems that this wasn’t quite truthful. As Cohl had a walkie-talkie, the Stones could hear the whole exchange.
“They call me back [into the dressing room], at which point Keith pulls out his knife and slams it on the table and says, ‘What the hell do I have you for? Do I have to go over there and fire him myself? One of us is leaving the building – either him, or us,'” Cohl recalled. “I said, ‘No. I’ll go do it. Don’t you worry.'”
Cohl passed on the message that if Trump went through with the press conference, the band would leave. Finally, he relented.
This wasn’t the only time Keith Richards used a knife to make a point
That same year, Richards employed a similar tactic on a record executive who suggested changes to a song on the Steel Wheels album.
“The song finishes, and the guy says, Keith, great song, man, but I tell you, I think if you arranged it a little bit differently it would be so much better,” an engineer recalled, as Richards recorded in his book Life. “So Keith went to his doctor’s bag and pulled out a knife and threw it, and it landed right between the bloke’s legs, boinggg. It was really like William Tell; it was great. Keith says, listen, sonny, I was writing songs before you were a glint on your father’s d***. Don’t you tell me how to write songs. And he walked out. And then Mick had to smooth it over, but it was fantastic. I’ll never forget.”
When reflecting on this moment, Richards fondly remembered his skill with a knife.
“I’ve got pretty good aim,” he told Rolling Stone. “It just missed him.”
The Rolling Stones’ guitarist was once arrested for possession of the weapon
Richards carried a knife on him for years, and it landed him on the wrong side of the law in 1975. While in Fordyce, Arkansas, police pulled him over for reckless driving and, when they found a hunting knife in the back seat, charged him with possession of a concealed weapon. The case didn’t make it far, though.
“The judge would like to keep the hunting knife and drop the charge on that — it hangs in the courtroom to this day,” Richards wrote. “He would reduce the reckless driving to a misdemeanor, nothing more than a parking ticket for which I would pay $162.50.”
As Richards pulled a knife on at least two occasions in 1989, it’s clear that the arrest didn’t affect him much.
