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ready for this? Damage control. Update on Drudge:

Did Keith Richards Really Snort His Dad’s Ashes? No — It Was A Joke!

Maybe you saw that Keith Richards item that started popping up all over the place on Tuesday (April 3) — the one about how he’d admitted to snorting the ashes of his late father after his body had been cremated? Great story, right? And yet, like so much in the world of celebrity journalism, totally untrue.

In case you missed it, this little yarn first appeared in the pages of London’s notoriously unreliable New Musical Express. The magazine quoted the Rolling Stones guitarist as saying, “The strangest thing I’ve tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father. He was cremated and I couldn’t resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn’t have cared. ... It went down pretty well, and I’m still alive.”

This wildly dubious quote proved irresistible to newspapers, wire services and TV and online outlets on both sides of the Atlantic, from The Associated Press to Forbes, The Drudge Report, Breitbart and E! Online. In fact, it was such a great story that nobody bothered trying to confirm it with a Richards representative — why spoil the fun with facts?

In a buzz-killing mood, though, we decided to check with Richards’ longtime manager, Jane Rose. We asked her about the dad-snorting quotes in the NME interview. She responded with an e-mail:

“Said in jest,” she explained. “Can’t believe anyone took [it] seriously.”