Biographer Says Bill Wyman Stopped Counting at 1,800 Partners in New Rolling Stones Book
Updated
Updated · Fox News · Jul 9
Biographer Says Bill Wyman Stopped Counting at 1,800 Partners in New Rolling Stones Book
3 articles · Updated · Fox News · Jul 9
Summary
Bob Spitz says in his new Rolling Stones biography that bassist Bill Wyman kept a journal of sexual partners and stopped counting at about 1,800.
Spitz uses the claim to argue the band’s bad-boy image was built as much on offstage excess as on music, with the Stones deliberately casting themselves as the anti-Beatles in the 1960s.
The account also recasts internal band lore: Spitz says Mick Jagger estimated his total in the hundreds, while Keith Richards counted only four and emerged in the book as the group’s "most romantic" member.
Wyman’s private life later drew sharper scrutiny than typical rock-star excess, including his 1989 marriage at age 52 to Mandy Smith, then 18, after they reportedly met when she was 13.
Spitz says the larger story of the Stones is that turmoil, affairs and long-running feuds never broke the band because Mick Jagger and Keith Richards’ bond kept it together.