Keith Richards has opened up about his volatile relationship with band mate Mick Jagger – revealing The Rolling Stones almost split because of the frontman’s ego.
We’re all pretty aware by now that there’s been no love lost over the years between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. So it’s no surprise that, in a forthcoming autobiography (which, in the illustrious tradition of celebrity memoirs, I’m sure he totally wrote himself), Richards has a few less-than-lovely things to share about The Rolling Stones lead singer. Among the most memorable are his nicknames for Jagger – the diva-esque “Brenda” and “Her Majesty” – and the fact that Richards hasn’t entered his bandmate’s dressing room in more than 20 years (the ‘80s being the period when he began to find Jagger “unbearable”). He goes on to take aim at more than just the size of Jagger’s ego, stating that longtime former girlfriend Marianne Faithfull told him she’d “had no fun with [Mick Jagger’s] tiny todger,” and writes, “I know he’s got an enormous pair of balls – but it doesn’t quite fill the gap.”
He tells the BBC the behavior “started at first to annoy me and then slowly enraged me.”
However, Richards insists the pair has managed to salvage their friendship over the decades, adding, “nobody has the perfect marriage.”
