He didn’t snort dad’s ashes, Richards says

Off the cuff or up the nose? That was the question Wednesday as Keith Richards said he was joking when he described snorting his father’s ashes along with a hit of cocaine.

“It was an off-the-cuff remark, a joke, and it is not true. File under April Fools’ joke,” said Bernard Doherty, a Rolling Stones spokesman, about Richards’ quote in NME magazine.

But the magazine said on its website that the remark was “no quip, but came about after much thinking” by the 63-year-old guitarist.

“He didn’t offer the information. I had to ask him a couple of questions to get the information out of him,” said interviewer Mark Beaumont. “He didn’t come straight out with that.”