Owen Wilson, The Rolling Stones, and a rescinded lifetime backstage pass: “I’m sorry!”
To say The Rolling Stones have been around for a while is an understatement, obviously, but one of the reasons they’ve been together for seven decades now is that they are fiercely protective of their privacy as a unit, as an unfortunate Owen Wilson once found out courtesy of a very shouty Mick Jagger.
The Stones will even separate themselves from the rest of their musicians, who they actually play on stage with before and after gigs, so it’s probably not a surprise that they don’t take too kindly to anyone appearing on that hallowed ground who isn’t supposed to be there.
Wilson, who is a lifelong Stones fan who first saw the band on their legendary 1980 Tattoo You tour when he was just 12 years old, witnessed this up close thanks to a gift worth gold dust in musical circles, a present from the Stones that he only sadly managed to hang on to for a day. The story of how he came into possession of it, and then lost it, is a pretty tragic tale of bumbling hope and star worship that took place when he attended a Stones gig in Argentina.
As he told James Corden on The Late Late Show: “I was kind of friendly with some of the band, and then my friend was really good friends with Mick Jagger. We got presented with these special laminates, kind of all-access, that were good for the rest of your life.”
Bless him, you can imagine his big blue eyes lighting up and him saying something like ‘Wowww” like he does in every single film he’s made. But alas, things did not play out like he might have wanted. Wilson added: “That night, at the concert, I’m kind of wandering around and testing it out… I ended up right at this place where I could look over and see Mick Jagger on the stage, and right there and then, all of a sudden, he bolts during ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ and comes running down.”
Jagger then apparently sprinted over to Wilson and reprimanded him for being on his stage, before a member of security told him to move, leaving the actor pretty shamefaced, shouting back, “I didn’t know! I’m so sorry!” and regretting his actions for the rest of the evening. Things then went from bad to worse for Wilson as he took a call from the Stones’ security team the next morning, swiftly followed by a visit from them to collect the sought-after laminate he’d had in his possession for less than 24 hours.
Wilson, to his credit, admitted Jagger and his band were entirely correct to take the access back off him, saying he didn’t need ‘some bozo’ wandering around on his stage while trying to entertain 100,000 people. At least Wilson can console himself with the fact he’ll have plenty of money coming in thanks to loads of new projects he’s working on at the moment, not least a new Meet the Fockers movie with Robert De Niro, a Lightning McQueen TV series (Ka-chow!) and a buddy thriller movie with Reacher star Alan Ritchson called Runner, which looks half decent from the trailer.
The Rolling Stones meanwhile show no signs of stopping, they released a limited edition new single last week as The Cockroaches and are expected to announce a new album coming in July, with a possible European tour in the works.
