Mick Jagger cheated death not once, but twice, according to a new Rolling Stones biography.
In 1976, the rock band’s frontman took heroin at record producer Marshall Chess’ New York City apartment on East 69th Street and nearly overdosed, Bob Spitz writes in his new book, The Rolling Stones: A Biography.
Chess claims in the book that Jagger came to visit Chess in the middle of the night after another party was trying to obtain drugs.
Chess, who was reportedly trying to get off drugs at the time, hopped into a Jaguar limousine and “visited a Buddhist heroin dealer, who knew who was there 24 hours a day at the mercy of New York drug addicts,” he says.
Chess claims in his book that he “shared a gram of heroin” with Jagger, now 82, and that 10 minutes later Jagger “fell to the floor.”
“Mick was cold,” Spitz wrote. “Chess tried to drag Jagger upright and slapped him several times, but nothing happened” and soon Jagger’s “lips turned blue.”
“I didn’t know what else to do,” Chess recalls. “I was shocked. Mick Jagger is going to die in my shitty apartment.”
Chess called an ambulance and called former Atlantic Records president Ahmet Ertegun, who soon arrived with Faye Dunaway in tow. At the time, the actress was married to J. Geil’s Band frontman Peter Wolfe, who was signed to Atlantic Records.
Dunaway reportedly called a friend, the director of nearby Lenox Hill Hospital, and “arranged a room for him to hide Mick out of the public eye,” while Chess performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until an ambulance arrived.
The “Satisfaction” singer was given oxygen by paramedics and “at that point he began breathing again.”
The second time the “Miss You” singer escaped death, it was a little more light-hearted.
In 1984, the band met in Amsterdam to discuss the future and make up for hurt feelings.
One night, Jagger and Keith Richards went out drinking together and returned to their hotel around 5 in the morning.
The singer picked up the phone, dialed drummer Charlie Watts’ room, and yelled, “Where’s my drummer?”
Twenty minutes later, Watts, immaculately dressed in a Savile Row suit, silently grabbed Jagger by the chest and yelled, “Don’t ever call me drummer!” “Then he pulled Mick’s jaw down and squared him with his belt.”
Richards recalled seeing Jagger “fall backwards onto a plate of smoked salmon” and “sliding dangerously across the table towards the open window and canal below”.
“I just grabbed his leg and saved him from getting out,” Richards said.
The book also delves into Richards’ heroin addiction and guitarist Bill Wyman’s sex life.
A Jaguar spokesperson did not respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
