Jumpin’ Jack Flash! Fun Facts About Mick Jagger’s Life

The Rolling Stones frontman just won't quit — he's turned music to gold for decades, bought an estate while tripping acid and had a kid at 73.

Jumpin’ Jack Flash! Fun Facts about Mick Jagger’s Lavish Life

Some people might have moves like Jagger, but most don’t have his kind of money. Mick Jagger, the hip-shaking Rolling Stones vocalist has enough money to get anyone off of his cloud by buying the sky.

Worth an estimated $500 million, Jagger isn’t just a brilliant musician, he’s a seasoned businessman who just won’t stop working.

Let’s take a look at some of the more financially fascinating facts about the octogenarian rock star who just won’t quit.

He Grew Up in a Small Townhome

Michael Phillip Jagger was born on July 26, 1943. His early years were spent at a small house in Dartford, a town outside of London — at 39 Denver Road to be exact.

His mother was a housekeeper and his father was a gym teacher. The home is a modest three-bedroom, one bathroom townhome. But being Jagger’s childhood home didn’t seem to do much for the property value — the home last sold for £129,000 ($182,000) in 2013.

It was in Dartford that Jagger met the immortal Keith Richards, and the two became childhood friends.

He Was a Good Student

Despite Jagger’s infamous bad-boy lifestyle, he was a pretty model student growing up. According to his grammar school’s history teacher, Jagger was “a sober, thoughtful student” and a very good one at that, according to a 1997 History Channel biography.

He attended the London School of Economics to be an accountant, but, after one year, he left that beast of burden behind to pursue music.

While those in the financial industry would call this a stupid move for almost anyone, it turned out to be the right one for Jagger.

From Cover Band to Songwriters

When the Rolling Stones were first starting out around 1962, they were a cover band that sang American blues songs. With their talent and Jagger’s provocative performances, they started gaining popularity and making some money playing gigs.

But their manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, realized the real way to make money was to produce their own hits — at the time, the Beatles were making stacks of cash with original songs. So he told Jagger and Richards to come up with something.

According to Richards, they came up with “As Tears Go By” and was sold to Marianne Faithfull in 1964. It was a hit. And just like that, they were off to write their own hits, which would redefine rock and roll.

He and the Stones Left England to Avoid Taxes

You think your taxes are bad? Back in the '60s and '70s, high earners in the United Kingdom had to pay an exorbitant amount of money in taxes — specifically, 93 percent.

So. if you made $100 million, you’d take home $7 million. So the Stones turned to France, said, ‘Gimme some tax shelter,’ and moved there for a bit.

It’s where they produced one of the Stones’ best albums, the aptly-titled “Exile on Main St.”

The Stones Made $10 Million per Show … in 2017

When the Stones went on their “No Filter” tour, they made approximately $10 million per show, for a total of $120 million, according to Time.

They sold 63,000 tickets per night at an average price of $159.

He Rents Out an Island Home for Tons of Money

You might not be able to spend the night together with Jagger (well, you probably still can if the stars align), but you rent out one of his mansions.

Jagger owns a multimillion-dollar beachfront property on the island of Mustique, located in the West Indies. Known as “Stargroves,” the six-bedroom, five-bathroom residence can be rented out weekly, often for more than most people make in an entire year.

Currently the price ranges from a low $16,500 weekly fee for May through most of July, but soar to $45,000 during Christmas time. You won’t be able to save money by taking a busload of people, either: a maximum of 10 guests are allowed.

He May Have Bought an Estate While Stoned

In 1970, Jagger bought a several hundred-year-old manor house estate in Hampshire. Named "Stargroves" (which what he also named his rentable mansion), Jagger bought the place for £55,000 — equal to about £800,260 today, or $1.3 million.

He slapped a recording studio into it, and The Stones as well as bands like Led Zeppelin and The Who recorded music there. He sold it in 1979 for £200,000.

That’s what we know for sure. But there’s a rumor that Jagger purchased the estate while he was high on LSD. According to the Telegraph, there’s a 75,000-word autobiographic manuscript, written by Jagger, floating around. Allegedly he wrote it in the 80s, and in it, he apparently tells “‘of buying a historic mansion, Stargroves, while high on acid and trying out the life of horse-riding country squire,’” the books would-be publisher told the Telegraph.

So far the manuscript has not been authenticated by Jagger, so it’s not clear if it’s true…although Jagger hasn’t denied it, either.

Royalties Fit for a Royal

Sir Mick — who was knighted in 2003 — makes a princely sum from royalties alone.

According to the most recent data from Billboard, the Stones made $4.6 million in sales-derived royalties alone in 2016.

Lots of Satisfaction in the Sheets

Jagger is rumored to have slept with over 4,000 women, according to his biographer, according to The Huffington Post.

Included in that list are reportedly the French singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, Angelina Jolie, Uma Thurman, Farrah Fawcett and Carly Simon.

Jagger is currently the father of eight children — although there could always be more.

A Divorce Cost Him Millions

Jagger might have eight kids, but he’s only been married twice. One was to then-socialite, now-humans-rights activist Bianca de Macias in 1971 (interestingly, it was a public wedding). That lasted until 1978 when Jagger divorced her for supermodel Jerry Hall.

Those two made it a lot longer, and stayed together until 1999 when she divorced him on grounds of infidelity (Jagger had knocked someone else up). The settlement is estimated to have cost Jagger between $15 and $25 million, according to "Forbes."

Hall had originally tried to take half of Jagger’s net worth, but since the wedding took place in Bali and the legal circumstances of the wedding were iffy, Jagger argued they were never actually married. It worked, and the marriage was annulled.

Hall later went on to find an older, much wealthier but decidedly much less cool husband in media mogul Rupert Murdoch. The two married in 2016.

He Made a Really Bad Movie

Long before Jagger and Hall divorced, they made a movie. Which is by all accounts a terrible, terrible film that may be so bad it’s good. Jagger co-wrote and starred in the film, “Running Out of Luck” which also starred Hall and Dennis Hopper, for whatever reason. Maybe there were lots of drugs around. Because only drugs could explain why anyone thought this movie could have possibly been a good idea.

For an idea of how ridiculous it is, at one point in the movie Jagger is turned into a sex slave and whipped by a female plantation owner. Then he wanders through a desert and finds a half-eaten Big Mac until it “rains” (someone off camera uses a watering can), then he finds a rotisserie chicken, is heckled away by an angry woman, and accidentally enters a capoeira routine in a graveyard. You can find clips on YouTube.

He’s Also Starred in a Few More

Jagger might be better suited producing movies with his Jagged Films film studio, but he’s also acted in more movies than you’d think.

In 1970, he starred in “Ned Kelly" and "Performance." In 1992, he played the villain in “Freejack,” which also featured Anthony Hopkins. In 2001 he was in “The Man from Elysian Fields” and in 1997 he had a bit part in the historical drama “Bent.”

Someone Paid $6,000 for a Lock of his Hair

What’s weirder: that someone paid $6,000 for a lock of Mick Jagger’s hair, or that the person who sold the lock had kept it for decades?

The seller, Chrissie Shrimpton was Jagger’s girlfriend when he was a college student and not the hip-swinging sex-and-rock-and-roll god of the Stones. During that time in the early 60s, she snatched a bit of his hair after it had been washed and trimmed.

Then she held onto it for over 50 years, until she sold it at a charitable auction for $6,000 in 2013. But who doesn’t hang on to a piece of hair for half a century?

Dropping Out of School Was “Very, Very Difficult”

We mentioned before that Mick dropping out of the London School of Economics to pursue his career in music was risky, but reflectively far more profitable.

Yet when Jagger was in the thick of it, it was a really hard decision. As he told "Rolling Stone": "It was very, very difficult because my parents obviously didn't want me to do it. My father was furious with me, absolutely furious. I'm sure he wouldn't have been so mad if I'd have volunteered to join the army. Anything but this. He couldn't believe it. I agree with him: It wasn't a viable career opportunity. It was totally stupid. But I didn't really like being at college. It wasn't like it was Oxford and had been the most wonderful time of my life. It was really a dull, boring course I was stuck on."

He Once Owned Rights to “A Clockwork Orange"

Jagger has an unlikely connection to Anthony Burgess’ masterwork “A Clockwork Orange.”

Sometime before anyone made a movie of the book, Jagger purchased the rights from Burgess for a simple $500. It’s not clear when that happened, but it must have been before 1968. Because in 1968, The Beatles and a handful of other stars petitioned for Jagger to be cast in the upcoming movie. Which sounds quite bezoomny but is actually what happened.

Apparently Jagger sold the rights to a movie producer (and of course made a healthy profit), but still wanted to be included in the film. So The Beatles and friends sent this petition in protest to the screenplay writer:

“We, the undersigned, do hereby protest with extreme vehemence as well as shattered illusions (in you) the preference of David Hemmings above Mick Jagger in the role of Alex in The Clockwork Orange.”

Thankfully that never happened, and of course the movie would eventually be made by Stanley Kubrick after British film censors banned the script. Oh, and the movie Jagger envisioned included he and his bandmates playing Alex and his Droogs, while The Beatles supplied the soundtrack.

It went to auction in 2015 and quickly sold for an undisclosed sum on Paddle8; "Rolling Stone" estimates the selling price would have been between $18,000 and $25,000.

Jagger’s Old Love Letters Are Worth a Fortune

In the summer of 1969, Jagger wrote some love letters to Marsha Hunt, the woman who inspired the song “Brown Sugar.”

Hunt held onto those letters for a long while (which certainly makes more sense than hanging onto hair) and, in 2012, sold them at auction. They reportedly sold for over $300,000, according to Time.

Hunt told The Guardian she sold them because she was broke and needed money for house repairs and bills.

The Hells Angels Tried to Murder Him

In 1969, someone hired a group of Hells Angels (their price: $500 worth of beer) to play bodyguard at the Altamont Speedway Free Concert, where the Stones were headlining. Everything went wrong.

As bands played into the night, the audience, got more and more smashed on drugs on alcohol. Since concert stage was very close to the floor, the main barrier between the performers and an audience of 300,000 screaming fans were the Hells Angels, who were also high on whatever booze and drugs they had drank, smoked, dropped or injected.

It all came to an ugly head when the Stones were performing. Meredith Hunter, an 18-year-old, reportedly tried to rush the stage, was beat back by the Hells Angels, and then came back with a gun. During the tussle an Angel stabbed Hunter with a knife (which was captured on film), killing him.

Jagger later denounced the Hells Angels and refused to work with them again. That enraged the biker gang so much that they decided they were going to murder the lead singer.

According to a former FBI agent, “a boat of Hells Angels set out to take revenge on the singer at his holiday home in the Hamptons, Long Island, New York,” reports the BBC.

Planning to avoid security at Jagger’s Hampton home, they tried going around back through the garden, which abutted the seaside. Either by grace of God, pure luck, or because the Angels didn’t know how to read a weather report, a storm rolled in and tossed all the Angels overboard.

While they all survived, it apparently ended their desire to murder Mick, and those leather clad beasts of burden finally left him and the stones alone.

He was Bailed Out by the Boston Mayor

During the band’s “Exile on Main Street” tour in 1972, Jagger and Richards were arrested for assault on a photographer at a Rhode Island Airport. While the photographer, Andy Dickerman, had been cleared to snap a few shots by a Stones security member, Keith Richards disagreed with the decision.

Here’s how the arresting officer, Frank Ricci, remembered the incident 25 years later, as reported in South Coast Today: “‘As soon as he (starts to take photos) some long-haired guy got up, whipped his belt off and went after Dickerman,’ said Ricci. ‘And I said, ‘OK, that’s it.’ I don’t care who you say you are. You’re under arrest.’”

According to South Coast Today, Ricci, who had no idea who the band members were, “cuffed Richards, but a few seconds later lead singer Mick Jagger jumped Ricci from behind. Then, Ricci said, the 28-year-old, 130-pound Jagger shouted ‘if you take him, you’re taking me, too.’ So Ricci replied, ‘OK, we can take you, too.’”

Which is an entertaining story in itself, before the Boston mayor got involved. The Stones were set to play at a packed Boston Garden stadium. Boston Mayor Kevin White, fearing a riot would break out if the Stones did a no-show, called the Rhode Island police and persuaded them to let the iconic duo out of the clink.

Then Mayor White rushed over to the stadium, jumped on stage and told the audience: "The Stones have been busted, but I have sprung them!"

He Owns a Film Production Company

Jagger has always been interested in film. In 1995, he co- founded Jagged Films, which produced its first movie, “Engima,” in 2002. It earned $15.7 million worldwide — or one-and-a-half Stones shows — although it’s not clear what the budget was or if it made a profit.

Most recently Jagged Films produced “Get On Up,” a biopic about James Brown, which grossed $30.7 million on a $30 million budget.

Jagger Paid Sid Viscous’ Legal Fees

According to the Sex Pistols’ John Lydon (a.k.a Johnny Rotten), Jagger helped the Sex Pistols bassist out during the most notorious incident in punk rock history — when John Simon Ritchie (Sid Vicious) was accused of murdering his girlfriend, Nancy.

During an interview, he told the Daily Record: “The only good news is that I heard Mick Jagger got in there and brought lawyers into it on Sid’s behalf because I don’t think Malcolm [the band’s former manager] lifted a finger. He just didn’t know what to do. For that, I have a good liking of Mick Jagger.”

He Paid a Hefty Amount of Child Support and Alimony

Remember when we said Jagger’s marriage to Jerry Hall ended when he knocked someone else up? That someone was Brazilian model Luciana Morad. In 2000, Morad sued Jagger for paternity payments.

She ended up getting Manhattan apartment worth £1.4 million (about $2 million), a lump sum of £3.5 million (about $5 million) and an allowance of £17,800 (a little over $25,000) a month according to the Telegraph.

He Doesn’t Share all his Music Profits with the Stones

While Jagger is inextricably linked with the Stones, he did break away from the rock group on occasion and has released four solo albums. It all started in 1983 after Jagger jumped on a three-album deal with CBS that he signed along with another big Stones deal.

However, Jagger didn’t tell any of the other Stones about it, which exacerbated existing tensions within the band. Nevertheless, Jagger released his first solo album, “She’s the Boss,” in 1985. The album sold extremely well and went platinum.

But it seemed to piss Keith Richards off the most, who thought their lead singer should have been focusing on the band. In Richards’ 2010 memoir, “Life,” he said of the album that “It's like 'Mein Kampf.' Everybody had a copy, but nobody listened to it."

Jagger’s subsequent three albums all cracked the Billboard 200, although none were as successful as his first solo release.

He Helped Build a Venue

One way for the super-rich to give back to the community they grew up in is to build something important. In Jagger’s case, it’s a performing arts venue.

Located in Dartford, Kent, and close to where Jagger went to grammar school, is the Mick Jagger Centre. It cost £2.25 million ($3.2 million) to build; a National Lottery grant funded £1.7 million ($2.4 million) of it, and Jagger picked up the rest of the bill.

He Helped Produce HBO’s “Vinyl”

“Vinyl” is a show about a New York music exec in the 1970s, full of sex, drugs and rock and roll. And even though it had Martin Scorsese as a producer along with Jagger, but the ratings were poor enough to make those grown HBO execs cry.

“Vinyl” reportedly cost HBO $30 million to produce the two-hour pilot (which was directed by Scorsese) and $100 million for the first season, according to the Hollywood Reporter, and the network decided putting up the cash for season two just wasn’t worth it.

He Formed a Super Group

In 2011, Jagger teamed up with an unlikely group of friends and formed the one-off band called SuperHeavy.

The group consisted of Jagger, Dave Stewart, Damian Marley, Joss Stone and A.R. Rahman, forming a mash-up of reggae/rock/Indian pop/soul music. The sole album, “SuperHeavy,” peaked at #26 on Billboard 200.

The album received mixed reviews — a New York Times reviewer wrote, “An almost total lack of good songs constitutes the album’s basic problem. Once that’s understood, the record becomes sort of entertaining: gaudy, vacuous, densely mannered.”

He Had a Kid at 73

In 2016, at the age of 73, Jagger welcomed a new baby boy into the world. The child is the offspring of the legendary rocker and his girlfriend, Melanie Hamrick, a 30-year-old American ballet dancer.

Oh, and the child’s name is Deveraux Octavian Basil Jagger. So…yeah.

The Rolling Stones Operate as a Big Business

And Jagger is CO-CEO, along with Richards. It’s a lucrative operation and it takes a small business workforce to keep the balance sheets under their thumb.

According to a 2002 "Fortune" story on the band, the Stones “has a P&L and budgets, and accountants, and lawyers, and bankers, and investments, and software, and hardware.”

There are several executives, like the business manager, tour director and business advisor.

“They all have income streams like any other company,” Jagger told "Fortune." “They have different business models; they have different delegated people that look after them.”

And Those Profits are Huge

The need for so much oversight makes sense when you look at just how much the Stones can pull in.

According to "Fortune," the band made $1.5 billion from 1989 until 2002, with the majority of it coming from tour sales. And the profits, distributed to the band’s four core members (Jagger, Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood), probably weren't distributed evenly — don't forget, Jagger and Richards are also the band's main songwriters.

The band’s former manager, Allen Klein, told "Fortune," "In the old days they all got equal splits, but I doubt it now."

Nobody Tours Like the Stones

As we’ve seen, touring is a mega earner for the Stones. While their “No Filter” tour was certainly a success, the band really painted the balance sheets black in the mid-2000s.

For two years, from August 2005 until August 2007, the Stones went on a worldwide “A Bigger Bang” tour to promote their latest album. They played 147 shows (including a surprise appearance in Toronto, where goers only paid $10 for tickets), with practically all of them sold out.

In total, the Stones made over half a billion dollars — or an exact amount of $588,255,524. It was the highest-grossing tour of all time until U2’s “360 Degree” tour which pulled in $756 million between 2009 and 2011.

They made $179.3 million on their most recent tour in 2022.

The Stones Keep Rocking in the Studio

Most people remember the Stones for their classics from 30 to 50 years ago, but the band released a hit new album in 2005 called “A Bigger Bang.” The album went platinum in the United States and Germany, and sold 2.4 million copies worldwide in the first year.

Bill Wyman, who retired from the band in the early 1990s, may also be making a return — on vinyl, anyway. He and the rest of the band recorded a tribute to late drummer Charlie Watts, who died in August 2021.

And Won’t Stop Rolling

In December of 2016, the stones released their 25th record, “Blue & Lonesome,” an album full of blues covers.

It went platinum within a month in the UK, and by the following year it had sold two million copies worldwide.

...Or Touring

Jagger will be 80 in July. Richards is 79. Ron Wood is 76. Yet the Stones are still going strong.

If you miss them, don’t worry about it — we’re sure they’ll tour again next year, and the year after that, and the year after that.

And we’re sure the price of admission will still feel like 40 licks to your wallet.