Keith Richards’ Rep Denies Violence Claims
Keith Richards reportedly threatened and attacked a Swedish journalist during an interview at a Paris hotel Tuesday — though his representative denied to Rolling Stone that any violence had occurred.
According to online translations of an article in the Swedish-language publication
Aftonbladets, Richards, who was promoting his memoir
Life, became hostile when he realized that the paper’s interviewer, Markus Larsson, was the man who had given a Rolling Stones concert a bad review after a 2007 concert in Gothenburg, Sweden, describing them as “amateurs.” Richards reportedly demanded a public apology for the review, as he had after the concert reviews were published.
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Tuesday’s meeting “ended with the rock star threatening Markus Larsson and hitting him in the head,” the article claims, adding that Richards said, “You’re lucky to get out of here alive” to Larson before he left.
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However, a spokesperson for Richards says that the allegations against the singer were false. “At the conclusion of the 20 minute interview Keith Richards jokingly tapped the journalist on the head after his questions got a bit silly,” Richards’ spokesperson tells Rolling Stone. “From the people in the room during the interview they would suggest that the writer has allowed his imagination to get the better of him.”