Inside Rolling Stone Charlie Watts' wild life as he admits 'I took too many drugs'

It’s safe to say that music legend Charlie Watts lived an incredible life – but it wasn’t without its drama.

The iconic Rolling Stones drummer was known as “the calm at the centre of the Rolling Stones storm, on and off stage”.

But amid marriage break-ups, bust-ups, addiction and arrests it wasn’t always that calm for Charlie.

The artist sadly passed away at the age of 80 on Tuesday, after his publicist Bernard Doherty confirmed the news in a statement to the PA news agency.

The emotional statement read: “It is with immense sadness that we announce the death of our beloved Charlie Watts,

“He passed away peacefully in a London hospital earlier today surrounded by his family.”

To honour the legendary drummer’s life, the Daily Star have taken a trip down memory lane and looked back at his years of public glory and personal battles.

Rolling Stones fame and global success

Charlie will go down in history as being one of the most influential drummers of all time, having been a member of the Rolling Stones since 1963.

In 2006, he was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame, and in the same year he found himself elected into Vanity Fair’s International best Dressed List Hall of Fame.

Not short of accolades, Charlie was hailed as “rock’s greatest drummer” by renowned music critic Robert Christgau, and he ranked 12th on the magazine Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time list.

Charlie started playing drums in various clubs in London, where he met his future band mates Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones.

The London band bagged themselves No.1 hits in the UK, North America and Europe with songs like (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.

The group toured around the world and found sparkling success at the top of both the UK and US charts in the 1960s.

The band secured their place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.

Recalling his time with the band, Charlie stated: “I knew there was something special very early on,

“Most bands start very enthusiastically and gradually audiences drop off. This lot was totally different.

“We were never unpopular, the band’s audience grew and grew and that is the phenomenon really.”

Discussing his fellow band mates in a 2012 interview, Charlie said that Mick and Keith have hardly changed over the years.

He told the Mirror: “Mick and Keith were the same at the start as they are now,

“Except poorer and living in one house together instead of five each. They are exactly the same and I’m in the middle aren’t I, ­physically on stage, and off it.

“We have been together so long and so many things have happened. I just spent a week with them and they were exactly like Mick and Keith.”

Struggles with booze and drugs in the 70s and 80s

Despite being seen as the reliable member of the band, Charlie still had a wild few years in the 1980s.

During this time, he turned to drink and drugs, and admitted that he “went mad”.

Reflecting on the tumultuous period, Charlie explained: “It was very short for me. I just stopped, it didn’t suit me at all.

“I never knew whether Ronnie was drunk or not. Keith permanently lived like that so it was never a problem with either of them.

“But it didn’t work for me, glad to say.

“I drank too much and took drugs. I went mad really. But I stopped it all. It was very easy for me. I broke my ankle when I was playing at Ronnie Scott’s so I had to get straight really, so I did.”

However, Charles even admitted he was lucky not to have become hooked on heroin during the ’70s.

Speaking to BBC6 music, he confessed he dabbled with the drug during the recording of the band’s 1978 album, Some Girls.

Luckily, he was convinced to stop taking the drug after his guitarist Keith Richards stepped in to help him.

He said: “I was lucky that I never got hooked, but I went through a period of taking heroin.

“I fell asleep on the floor [during the recording of] ‘Some Girls’ and Keith woke me up and said, ‘You should do this when you’re older’. Keith telling me this! But it stuck and I just stopped along with everything else.”

Long-term marriage and tensions from touring

Charlie admitted that his booze-filled stints in the 80’s put a strain on his marriage, but their marriage stood the test of time.

“She’s wonderful, she’s something else,

“She is an incredible woman. She is very good to me, she never made many waves. The one regret I have of this life is that I was never home enough.

“But she always says when I come off tour I am a nightmare anyway and tells me to go back.”

The drummer met his long-time wife Shirley way before he even joined the band, and the pair tied the knot all the way back in October 1964.

The couple shared a daughter, Seraphina, who was born in 1968, who gave birth to Watt’s only grandchild – a girl named Charlotte.

Recalling how he met Shirley, Charlie said: “I didn’t meet my wife doing this. I was actually playing with Alexis Korner and she came to the very, very first rehearsal that I had with him and that’s how I met her. So I don’t know her from this world, The Rolling Stones world.

“She came to one tour in Australia and never wanted to go again. People who turn up when we’re on the road become very silly and it becomes a bit of a nightmare. So my wife would sooner be away from it, with her dogs and horses.

“She has known Mick and Keith for many, many years and she loves both of them, particularly Mick, who is Mr Smoothy, a real charmer.”

Throat cancer diagnosis

Watts was diagnosed with throat cancer in June 2004, even though he quit smoking back in the late 1980’s.

He went into hospital and received treatment for the disease – undergoing radiotherapy for the cancer.

Shirley was his rock during the difficult time, and the star thought his life was over.

He said: “I thought I was going to die when they told me I had it, which is what most people go through.

“You think ‘ah well, that’s it’. I didn’t know how to deal with it. The lowest point was the moment he told me I had cancer.

“Before that it was just a benign lump but when they looked at it under the ­microscope… it was in the tonsil so they did a clean-up but they’ve perfected ­radiotherapy that burns all the bad out. It was fantastic but it makes you feel like s***.

“It is a big wake up call from trolling about the West End in your Sunday best. Suddenly you are in your slippers.”

Ever the trooper, Watts didn’t just recover from the cancer as it went into remission but he then returned to drumming with his Rolling Stones bandmates.

He recalled: “I went into hospital”, “and eight months later Mick said: ‘We’re going to do a record. But we’ll only do it when you’re ready.’

They band had been writing songs, and when Charlie was finally ready they recorded their 22nd British album, called A Bigger Bang, followed by a two-year tour.

Charlie had quipped: “It seems that whenever we stop, I get ill. So maybe I should carry on!”

Emergency surgery and tour pull-out

Earlier this month, Charlie was forced to pull out of an upcoming tour after needing an emergency round of surgery.

The 80-year-old was set to embark on his latest tour with the Stones in September – the No Filter tour – but had to go in for an operation in London when a routine check-up found a health issue.

The surgery had been successful according to reports, but the drummer had to quit the tour as several weeks of recovery was needed.

Charlie had joked to The Sun: “For once, my timing has been a little off.”

The tour will still go ahead without Charlie, and although he was gutted to be missing out he didn’t want fans to face more delays.

He said: “After all the disappointment with delays to the tour caused by Covid, I really don’t want the many Stones fans in the States who have been holding tickets to have another postponement or cancellation.

“I have therefore asked my great friend Steve Jordan to stand in for me.”

It was the first time Charlie had missed a tour with the band since 1963.

Charlie was “a cherished husband, father and grandfather” as well as being “one of the greatest drummers of his generation”.

The statement following his tragic passing continued: “We kindly request that the privacy of his family, band members and close friends is respected at this difficult time.”

For more of the latest showbiz news from the Daily Star, make sure you sign up to one of our newsletters here.

Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk