Paul Weller reveals he was once attacked by a lion
Paul Weller has revealed that he was once attacked by a lion while on the way to play a concert in the 1970s.
The unfortunate incident, which could have potentially had fatal consequences, happened when Weller was travelling to a show in Surrey as a teenager for an early concert with The Jam.
The lion belonged to his father’s friend, Ronnie, who was driving Weller to play the gig. In a new interview with Uncut, Weller shared: “So Ronnie would drive the van and the lion would sit in the passenger seat.”
“You couldn’t get too comfortable, though,” Weller, whose new album Find El Dorado is released on July 25th, said of his memories of the big cat that was inseparable from his father’s friend.
The former frontman of The Jam then explained that the lion “wasn’t fully grown at that point” and attacked him after he “leant on the back of the passenger seat,” where the deadly animal was situated.
Weller continued: “You had to watch that, because one time, we were sitting in the back and I leant on the back of the passenger seat – next thing I know, the fucking lion’s gone for me. I nearly shit myself, man. Attacked by a lion!”
Much to Weller’s frustration, he had to share a ride home with the lion after the concert as he was reliant on Ronnie’s vehicle to get back to his house. He recalled, “Ronnie just dropped us off and came back later—with the lion, yeah.”
Despite the scare, Ronnie did keep his lion as a pet beyond this point and had it “for a few years”, but according to Weller, “I think he had to give it up because it was getting too big.”
Elsewhere in the same interview, Weller mourned the death of The Jam’s Rick Buckler, who passed away in February following a short illness.
He poignantly reflected: “I mean, Rick’s passing was a real shock; it was a real fucking … perspective-changing moment. Because even though we weren’t close and we hadn’t spoken for decades, nevertheless, we were intrinsically joined together and always will be, really, the three of us.”
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