Sir Richard Branson recalls saving Keith Richards from gun-toting man

Sir Richard Branson has revealed he once saved the life of Rolling Stones rocker Keith Richards when a man with a gun showed up at his house looking for him.

Sir Richard Branson once saved Keith Richards from a man with a gun.

The 74-year-old Virgin Group founder has been good friends with the 81-year-old Rolling Stones rocker for years and revealed he once saved Richards’ life when he lied about his whereabouts to a man who showed up with a gun, intent on killing Richards because he believed Richards was having an affair with his wife.

Speaking about the incident on Virgin Radio UK, Branson said: “I went to the front door. There was this huge guy there and he had a gun.

“He went, ‘I’ve come to kill Keith Richards, he’s in your house with my wife’.

“As I was talking to him, I saw a naked Keith Richards and a naked wife running behind him across the lawn.

“I said, ‘Put the gun down and you can search the house’. He searched the house, he [said sorry], he left.

“About an hour later, a naked Keith Richards came back without the wife.”

Branson previously shared about his years of “sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll” with Virgin Records, which he founded in 1970.

Speaking at the unveiling of his Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 2018, he said: “Running a record company can be a lot of fun, and yes, it did involve sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.”

He signed the Rolling Stones in 1992 and joked: “That night, I’m told, we had a party that none of us can remember.”

And, Branson has revealed Richards actually taught him how to roll a joint.

He told the Guardian: “I was a late starter, in my early 20s, in a recording studio in Oxford. He was very patient with me.”