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Rolling Stones quotes: Keith Richards about the legend he had undergone a blood change in Switzerland to cure his heroin addiction (1973)

KEITH RICHARDS AND THE BLOOD CHANGE MYTH
Back in ’73, Keith Richards got so fed up with endless questions about quitting heroin that he dropped one of rock’s wildest throwaway lines. With a smirk, he told a reporter he’d flown to Switzerland and had all his blood swapped out. Total nonsense, of course—but outrageous enough to stick. Keith later admitted it was just a joke, but by then the “blood change” myth had already become part of Rolling Stones folklore.

“Someone asked me how I cleaned up, so I told them I went to Switzerland and had my blood completely changed. I was just fooling around. I opened my jacket and said, How do you like my blood change? That’s all it was, a joke. I was fucking sick of answering that question. So I gave them a story”

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Keith: No Blood Change at All

Keith Richards, ever the master of mischief, once waved off the exhausting sobriety chat with a tale so absurd it became legend. Picture this: a reporter digs in—“How’d you clean up?”—and Richards, eyes rolling, cracks open his jacket and quips, “I went to Switzerland and had my blood completely changed.” Bam. Stage is set. The flash of drama, the curveball, the cheeky reveal—it was performance, not confession. He wasn’t describing a miracle cure; he was heaving himself out of a conversation by turning it into a surreal punchline. That comment—equal parts laziness and genius—sparked a rumor mill.

People soaked up the imagery: a rock star flying off to the Swiss Alps, getting his insides replaced like engine oil, reemerging ready to rock. It’s storytelling at its purest: half theater, half defiance, all Richards. With one shrug, he created a myth that was more interesting than reality, because myth has legs. And Richards? He’s always had a knack for crafting lore—sometimes by inventing it himself.

Myth vs. Reality: The Blood Change Tall Tale

The supposed Swiss “blood change” for heroin recovery was born in 1973, during a rush to get Richards back on stage for the Stones’ European tour. At the time, the band faced pressure to keep the show rolling, and Keith’s dependency had become a serious obstacle. Tony Sanchez, in his memoir Up and Down with the Rolling Stones, claimed that a Florida doctor was flown in to perform the procedure in a Swiss villa at Villars-sur-Ollon. According to Sanchez, the process was nothing short of a full blood replacement—an almost science-fiction twist to explain how Richards could suddenly look healthier and ready to play.

But Richards himself would later laugh at the whole tale, saying he invented the story simply because he was “sick of answering that question.” Whether there was a dialysis-like treatment or nothing at all, the legend thrived, feeding the larger-than-life mythology that has always followed him.

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