The indestructible Rolling Stone turns 80

Keith Richards - The indestructible Rolling Stone turns 80

It is not without reason that Keith Richards (80) is surrounded by a myth of immortality. In his life, he jumped off the brink of death so often that one has to suspect more than pure coincidence behind it. His decades-long heroin and cocaine addiction apparently did not even pose the greatest threat to his physical integrity.

V1 missiles destroy his childhood home

Shortly after his birth on December 18, 1943, he had his first near-death experience when his first home in the town of Dartford, east of London, was almost completely destroyed by German V1 rockets in the summer of 1944.

In later interviews, the musician revealed that this early war experience shaped him for the rest of his life. The "Süddeutsche Zeitung " newspaper, for example, quotes him as saying: "It's still like that today - a bang or a siren can really scare me if I'm not prepared for it. For example, if I'm walking down the corridor in a hotel and someone is watching a World War II movie in their room and I hear the sirens through the door, I still take cover."

Almost carried off by Leonardo da Vinci

In the same interview, Richards explained that in the rest of his life it was often mainly mundane household accidents that almost brought him around the bend. In 1998, for example, he was almost killed by a falling book in his library. "The thing almost killed me," says the well-read rock musician. "It was Leonardo da Vinci' s book on human anatomy." The heavy work "smashed a few ribs, which then stabbed into his lungs". But he also survived this effortlessly.

"I have a real rock 'n' roll fighting body"

In 2005, he attributed his legendary resilience to musically-induced superhero abilities in Der Spiegel: "Apart from my heroin withdrawal, my body has always treated me well. And I've really put it to the test and broken a lot of things: four broken ribs, two damaged lungs, lots of broken fingers and toes. But I have a real rock 'n' roll fighting body, so everything heals in record time." Even his doctors, who repeatedly wanted to take him out of action for a while after injuries, were regularly amazed at his scientifically inexplicable record healing powers.

Almost fatal fall from Fiji palm tree

The following year, Richards proved his thesis once again. At the end of April 2006, he fell five meters from a palm tree at a luxury resort in Fiji and suffered a life-threatening blood clot in his brain, which had to be surgically removed. Less than two months later, he was back on stage with the Rolling Stones to rock the band's two-year "A Bigger Bang" tour.

In October 2013, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, a neighbor of Keith Richards was arrested in the US state of Connecticut and prevented from blowing him up with 44 kilograms of explosives. The report raised the question of how anyone could come up with the strange idea that 44 kilograms of explosives would be enough to bring the toughest of all Stones around the corner.

Everything under control even in the wildest times

That he would ever celebrate his 80th birthday seemed extremely unlikely in the early days of the Rolling Stones. After lead guitarist Brian Jones (1942 - 1969), who was kicked out of the band due to his drug excesses, drowned in a swimming pool in 1969 while high on drugs, a similar fate was predicted for Richards, who was also addicted to heroin. In his memoirs published in 2010 under the title "Life", however, he claims to have always had everything under control, even in his wildest excesses: "I don't attribute my survival solely to the first-class quality of my drugs. I was very careful about how much I took."

His new life without heroin, coke and fags

Nevertheless, in his old age he seems to have decided not to test his immortality quite so hard. As he revealed to the Telegraph in September 2023, he has been leading an almost completely drug-free life for several years. There he said: "I quit cigarettes in 2019, heroin in 1978, cocaine in 2006... But I still like to have a drink every now and then." Under these ideal conditions, it should be no problem for his rock 'n' roll warrior body to rock on for the next 80 years unscathed.