Keith Richards has revealed that age finally forced him to rethink one of his longest-running habits. In a new interview with The Guardian, the Rolling Stones guitarist said he quit cigarettes six years ago after realizing that the ritual no longer fit the way he wanted to live. “I tended to listen to my body just before it screamed for help,” Richards said, adding, “I wasn’t far from the end of the runway before I screamed for help.”
Richards explained that the turning point came when he looked at the cigarette in his hand and saw it differently. “Suddenly, I felt like after all these years of smoking — because, you know, a man smokes — I was sat around with this silly thing in my mouth thinking: how childish,” he said. He added that he still smokes weed, but the old cigarette habit had become something he no longer wanted to carry into old age.
The comments land at a moment when Richards is back in heavy Rolling Stones mode. He is helping promote the band’s new album Foreign Tongues, which arrives on July 10, and the project follows Hackney Diamonds as the band’s latest burst of studio activity. Richards said the new album has “a continuity” with Hackney Diamonds and described the recent London sessions as “a month of concentrated punch.”
The interview also shows how sharply Richards now contrasts with the chaos that defined much of his earlier image. At 82, he described slowing down as a practical choice rather than a surrender, saying that if you want to keep going, “you pace yourself.” The rocker who once seemed indestructible is now talking more openly about moderation, longevity, and the hard-earned lesson that listening to your body can matter more than living up to an old rock-star myth.
