Hell’s Angels Horror: How Brave Mick Jagger Put His Life on the Line Every Time He Went on Stage
July 26 2023, Published 12:10 p.m. ET
The Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger put his life on the line every time he went on stage.
A Hell’s Angels murder contract had been out on the 46-year-old rock star for over 20 years. Two attempts to kill him were made — both were bungled.
The grudge dated back to a Stones concert in December 1969, when the Angels said they were hired by the group for $500 in beer to control the 300,000 fans.
A gruesome fight broke out at the concert at the Altamont Speedway in Livermore, California, and a young man was stabbed to death by a gang of Angels.
Charlie Watts, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger and Ron Wood
“The club felt that the group didn’t stand behind them, although they had hired them to do security for them,” said Clarence Crouch, founding member of the Hell’s Angels Cleveland, Ohio, chapter.
Describing the Angels’ attitude toward Jagger in Yves Lavigne’s revealing book, Hell’s Angels, he said: “They felt that this rock band should have stayed behind them and said that they had hired them for around the bandstand, but they did not. They just left.”
Crouch added that the Angels had issued a warning that they were out to murder every member of the band, but that Jagger was at the head of the hit list.
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Keith Richards and Mick Jagger perform with The Rolling Stones at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey on August 1, 2019
The first attempt on Jagger’s life, according to Crouch, was when the Angels were tipped off that the rockers were staying at a New York hotel. One member was sent there was a .22 caliber gun and silencer. The would-be assassin stalked the hotel for hours, but none of the Stones turned up.
A few years later there was an elaborate scheme to place a bomb under a Long Island house the Stones had rented in New York. Hitmen were determined enough to check the layout of the house by swimming across the Long Island Sound. But plans to annihilate the band went awry when they were crossing the water in a small raft. The explosives were somehow dropped overboard.
Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Bill Wyman and Brian Jones in 1964
“Jagger takes these threats very seriously,” said a Stones associate in 1989. “His dread is that someone will one day murder him at a rock concert.”
“He spends $10,000 a month on security because he lives in fear that some crazed killer may strike at him," the source claimed.
Jagger, who turned 80 today, is "not a wild young man anymore,” the insider claimed at the time. Jagger, who has eight children, has been in a relationship with American choreographer Melanie Hamrick since 2014.