Lorne Michaels Worried Helping Keith Richards Avoid a Lifetime in Prison Might Backfire on Him
In 1978, Saturday Night Live’s Lorne Michaels left New York for his native Canada in order to testify in Keith Richards’ trial. Police arrested the Rolling Stones’ guitarist on drug charges severe enough to land him in prison for the rest of his life. At Mick Jagger’s request, Michaels flew to Toronto to speak in favor of Richards. He worried this might backfire on him.
The Rolling Stones guitarist was arrested in Toronto
In 1977, Canadian authorities arrested Richards at a Toronto hotel. He had 22 grams of heroin in his suite, which was enough to charge him with possession with the purpose of trafficking. In Canada, this charge carried a penalty of seven years to life in prison.
Richards posted bond but a judge ordered him to remain in Canada until his trial.
“We think we can get Anita [Pallenberg] off with a fine and a slap on the wrist, but the thing with Keith is much more serious,” a source close to the band told Rolling Stone in 1977. “He could get a life sentence. We can’t figure it. We had no trouble getting the Stones into Canada, but we might have a hell of a problem getting them out again.”
Lorne Michaels helped Keith Richards avoid prison time
In 1978, Michaels traveled to Canada to appear as a character witness for Richards. Jagger asked him to testify and arranged for a private jet to fly him to Toronto. While Michaels was happy to help his friend, he worried his testimony could backfire on him.
“The week before, in New York, he’d been jumpy; he was pleased to be asked to do a favor for his close friend Mick, but what if he had to perjure himself?” wrote Susan Morrison in Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live (per Entertainment Weekly). “He knew that Richards wasn’t clean. (In a back room at the courthouse, Richards took a quick snort from a bag of coke he had in his pocket.) Seated in the Toronto courtroom, Michaels fixed on the portrait of the queen looking down at him and Richards. He said to himself, ‘I’m Canadian. I’m not going to lie.’”
Ultimately, this did not end up being a problem for Michaels. He only had to answer questions about Richards’ creative life. Michaels described the guitarist as the “catalyst of the band.” Richards got off with a suspended sentence and an order to perform a benefit concert.
“‘Canadians would not want to put a real artist in jail,’ Michaels said later. Whether the outcome was due to his testimony, or to the intercession of a blind teenage superfan who had made a private appeal to the judge, is impossible to know,” Morrison wrote. “Within hours of the verdict, members of the press corps were making ‘blind justice’ jokes.”
Lorne Michaels had recently seen Keith Richards at rehearsals for ‘SNL’
Just two weeks before the trial, the Rolling Stones hosted Saturday Night Live. Richards was meant to appear in two sketches, but they were ultimately cut as he “didn’t appear to know where he was” during rehearsal.
“It’s nice to be standing and working with a dead person,” cast member Laraine Newman said, per Ultimate Classic Rock.
He performed with the band, however.
