Rolling Stones member and lead guitarist Keith Richards was joking when he claimed to have snorted his father's ashes along with cocaine, a spokesmanfor the band said on Wednesday.
"It was an off-the-cuff remark, a joke and it is not true. File under April Fool's joke," said Bernard Doherty of LD Communications, which represents the band.
Doherty declined to say any more about the reasons why Richards made the statement during an interview with NME, a popular music magazine.
"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," Richards was quoted as saying.
"He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared ... It went down pretty well and I'm still alive," he said
Richards' father, Bert, died in 2002, aged 84.
In an article published on its Web site, the magazine said the remark was "no quip, but came about after much thinking" by the rock star.
"He didn't offer the information, I had to ask him a couple of questions to get the information out of him," interviewer Mark Beaumont was quoted as saying. "He didn't come straight out with that."
"The complete story is lost in the usual slanting! The truth of the matter is that I planted a sturdy English Oak. I took the lid off the box of ashes and he is now growing oak trees and would love me for it!!!" Richards said in a statement posted on the Rolling Stones Web site to rebuke the story.
"I was trying to say how tight Bert and I were. That tight!!! I wouldn't take cocaine at this point in my life unless I wished to commit suicide," the posting continued.
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