How Keith Richards almost burnt to death in throes of drug addiction
It’s tough to imagine Keith Richards as a young man, just as it’s tough to imagine him ever passing on. There is something about The Rolling Stones’ guitarist that feels infinite; like he’ll live forever in immortal greatness. Sure, that’s partly down to his seemingly tireless talent as the band still rages on in decade six of success. But there’s also something more mythical about it as Richards has lived for years with death lurking close by, but also being one step ahead, it seems.
It’s a strange phenomenon. There could be reels of articles written about Richards’ numerous brushes with death, dating back to his childhood through to as recent as a 2006 fall from a tall tree in Fiji. The sheer amount of drugs that the man has consumed during his life is enough for several fatalities. How his body withstood his years of heroin and cocaine addiction is a mystery in itself. In 2007, he revealed that he even took it a little further when he mixed his father’s ashes with cocaine and snorted them. All in all, the guitarist feels like a kind of medical marvel as his lifelong recklessness cruised along with death as a companion but never a coroner.
Along with the tales of his near-misses with drugs, there are even wilder stories where Richards dodged death. In 1965, he was nearly electrocuted on stage, knocking him unconscious in front of an entire crowd. In 1969, the whole band were at risk during the Altamont Free Festival carnage. Even going back further, Richards almost didn’t even make it into a band as his house was bombed during World War Two.
The closest he ever came to conking it, though, is perhaps the scariest story. If anyone was asked to name the worst way to die, a fire has to be high on that list, as the prospect of burning alive provides plenty of nightmare fuel. The terrifying thought of meeting a painful end wasn’t a match for Richards’ drug-fuelled complacency, however, as he caused not one but two blazes.
The first came in 1971. During the recording of Exile On Main St, the band were at the height of their hedonistic success as they relocated to Nellcote, a mansion in the south of France. Every week, copious amounts of heroin and cocaine flowed into the place as they had visitors like William S. Burroughs, John Lennon and Gram Parsons visiting, looking for a party. In an attempt to maintain some level of productivity while crashing out, they even moved their studio into the basement mansion, so the band had to merely roll out of bed to make it there on time.
That was very nearly impossible for Richards as he set fire to his bedroom one night, nearly killing himself and his girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg. It was a classic and terrifyingly familiar tale for the guitarist as he merely fell asleep with a lit cigarette in his hand and a needle in his arm. They woke up just in time to narrowly avoid a grizzly, charred end.
You would think that would be enough to scare some sense into a person, but no. Back in England, in 1973, he set his Redlands Estate ablaze in a fire that was so bad even their thatched roof was sizzled. While some claim the fire once again was down to Richards’ habit of falling asleep while smoking, in his biography, Life, he blamed it all on a mouse chewing through some wiring. This time was more serious, however, as Richards and Pallenberg got their children out of the house before attempting to save some of their more precious items. The event resulted in one iconic photograph of a young Keith Richards, surrounded by burnt belongings, smoking.
Miraculously, Keith Richards is still alive. He gave up heroin in the late 1970s, cocaine was cleared in 2006, and even in 2019, he finally quit smoking, so hopefully, no more fires will risk putting out the flame of one of our brightest talents.
