Keith clears up 'snorting dad' confusion
WHEN Keith Richards retracted claims that he had snorted his father’s ashes with a generous sprinkling of cocaine, he put the kibosh on one of the greatest Rolling Stones anecdotes.
But now the 63-year-old rocker has admitted he did inhale his father Bert’s remains – just not with class-A narcotics.
Because that, of course, would have been disrespectful.
“The cocaine bit was rubbish,” says “Keef”, who is penning his autobiography.
“I said I chopped him up like cocaine, not with. I’d opened his box up and said, ‘Jesus, I’ve got to do something with dad, y’know, plant the oak tree.’
“I pulled the lid off and out comes a bit of dad on the dining room table. I’m going, ‘I can’t use the brush and dustpan for this’. So you just gotta like, put it together.
“What I found out is that ingesting your ancestors is a very respectable way of… y’know, he went down a treat.”
Sadly for Keith, the loss of Bert in 2002 was followed by the death of his much loved 91-year-old mother Doris from cancer in April this year.
“I sat on the end of her bed two days before she kicked the bucket,” he remembers. “I brought round a guitar and sat there and played to her. She’s gasping by now, she’s out of there, y’know. ‘Bye bye mum, see you tomorrow.’
“Next morning she wakes up and tells my secretary, who goes round to see her every day: ‘Did you hear Keith play? He was a bit out of tune.’ To the end, man. Acid.”
As for his own demise, hellraising Keith – who was recently told he had “perfect” liver, heart and kidneys by shocked doctors – hasn’t given it much consideration.
“I’ll just take three slaves with me,” he jokes. “I’ve never even thought about it. I mean, I don’t want to be paraded down Whitehall on a f****** carriage. I don’t want nothing.
“Hey, when I’m gone, I’m done. Everybody else can decide what to do with me. My folks know what’s what. Mind you, it’s a long way off. I’m looking to be a good 150 before I think about croaking.”
