Inside the Hells Angels’ Years-Long Plot to Assassinate Mick Jagger After Concert Tragedy
A new A&E episode of ‘Secrets of the Hells Angels’ recounts the multiple attempts on the rockstar’s life — and the infamous feud that started it all
By Emily Palmer People Magazine May 10, 2024
https://people.com/hells-angels-plot-assasinate-mick-jagger-altamont-concert-tragedy-8645621
• Meredith Hunter was fatally stabbed by a Hells Angels member during the infamous 1969 Altamont concert, where the biker gang was working security
• Afterward, the Hells Angels put a hit on lead singer Mick Jagger, saying he owed them $50,000 in legal fees later incurred because of that night
• Several attempts were made on the rockstar’s life, only ending after the biker gang was allegedly paid the $50,000 more than a decade later
As biker gang legend goes, the Rolling Stones allegedly stiffed the Hells Angels out of $50,000 after working security at the infamous, deadly Altamont concert in 1969.
In retaliation, they put a hit on Mick Jagger, with leader Ralph “Sonny” Barger passing word that “he wants to whack Mick Jagger,” recalls former Hells Angels President Charles “Peewee” Goldsmith in an interview with A&E.
In a upcoming episode of Secrets of the Hells Angels, key players recount the years-long assassination plot – and multiple failed attempts – to kill Jagger. The episode airs Sunday at 10 p.m. ET/PT on A&E. (Watch an exclusive clip below.)
One attempt – outlined by an ex-Angel identified as “Butch” and hidden by a screen in archival video of 1983 Senate Judiciary Committee testimony obtained by A&E – was around 1979 or 1980 when he said Angels employed “a pontoon boat, a little rubber raft thing with plastic explosives in it,” which they floated out to Jagger’s yacht then docked at Martha’s Vineyard.
But the pontoon flooded and capsized, and bikers swam back to shore, George Christie, then the Ventura, Calif., chapter president, tells A&E.
During a Senate Judiciary hearing into the inner-workings of the Hells Angels, then-Committee Chairman Strom Thurmond of South Carolina noted that in the some 13 years since the feud between the bikers and rockstars began, Jagger had not been killed, to which, per UPI’s courtroom reporting, Butch responded: “they will some day.”
After that, claims Christie, “Jagger coughed up with the dough – well, you know, somebody coughed up with the dough – because the debt was satisfied.”
“The ironic thing,” Christie adds with a laugh: “They gave us $50,000, and then we wound up fighting over the money.”
The Rolling Stones have never publicly commented on the alleged payment, according to A&E.
It started when the rock group hired the Hells Angels – for $500 worth of beer, The New York Times reported – as security for their free, counterculture Altamont Rock Music Concert, which was hyped as the “Woodstock West” and brought together some 300,000 people Dec. 6, 1969.
But the concert ended in tragedy after Meredith Hunter, a Black 18-year-old, was fatally stabbed by Hells Angels in a case that remained open for more than three decades. The Hells Angels claimed they incurred $50,000 in associated legal fees, and believed the Rolling Stones should pay that sum.
In a photograph shot in the ensuing chaos, Jagger, who stopped singing, is depicted gaping at the man’s body, which had been placed on stage. Jagger is shown with his hand covering his mouth, while a group of Hells Angels surround the teenager.
A witness who later testified at the first-degree murder trial told Rolling Stone in a feature published weeks after the deadly concert that the incident was instigated by the biker gang.
Biker Allan Passaro was found not guilty in 1971, after the California jury, who reviewed film of the incident, found that Passaro had acted in self-defense, The New York Times reported from the trial.
In 2005, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office closed the case, saying that Hunter had pointed a gun at the stage, after which Passaro stabbed him.
New episodes of Secrets of the Hells Angels air Sundays at 10 p.m. ET/ PT on A&E.