How Jagger dodged death

What happened

Members of the Hells Angels once plotted to murder Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger, according to a BBC documentary. Jagger decided to stop using the biker gang for concert security after members allegedly beat a fan to death during a 1969 show at the Altamont Speedway in California. A group of Hells Angels reportedly got in a boat and tried to attack Jagger at his home in the Hamptons on Long Island, but they were tossed overboard in rough seas. (New York Post, free registration)

What the commentators said

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How fortunate we all are—especially Jagger—that “bikers and boats don’t mix,” said the London Telegraph. “If Mick had died in 1970, before 'Brown Sugar' or 'Tumbling Dice,' before Sticky Fingers and Goats Head Soup, think of the myriad student parties that might never have got started, the millions of conceptions that might never have followed.”

It’s a good thing “the Angels were as coordinated assassins as they were security guards,” said Peter Kimmich in Cinema Blend. The gang apparently gave up after the shipwreck. Even if they had tried again, “it’s pretty likely that even the best-planned assassination attempt on Mick Jagger would have failed, because any malicious being to approach him would inevitably be dismembered and eaten by the temperamental and bullet-proof Keith Richards.” Besides, this tale might simply be “a promotional stunt to get the band in the headlines.”

This story is fascinating, said The Smoking Gun, although it isn’t exactly a scoop for the BBC. According to a former Angel’s testimony to the FBI, which The Smoking Gun posted years ago, the “dinghy full of burly, bloodthirsty motorcycle enthusiasts” who went after Jagger didn’t only fail in their mission, but they barely escaped with their lives when the boat capsized. “Perhaps someone should have packed XXXL water wings.”