Do we like Mick Jagger?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A long clean run on harm, with climate remarks on the record, held back by a contested 2026 comment on politics at concerts and thin evidence on LGBTQ+ issues.
Jagger has fronted the Rolling Stones for the best part of sixty years, and he is still turning out albums. Foreign Tongues is their 25th studio record, due on 10 July 2026 with a single called In the Stars. In June he said he was ready to tour, but the earlier stadium dates were cancelled because Keith Richards could not commit.
His biggest brush with the law was in 1967, when he was convicted over possession of a handful of pills and handed three months in jail. The sentence was seen as far harsher than normal. After The Times published a leader criticising it, the sentence was cut on appeal and he walked free. It reads less like a pattern and more like a young star being made an example of.
On the harm test, we found no campaigning against LGBTQ+ people, women or migrants, and no conspiracy-theory slide. The record is thin in places, so that is what we found, not a guarantee. In 2019 at Venice he said the US had gone the wrong way on environmental control, and that he was absolutely behind the young climate protesters who disrupted the red carpet.
The recent stoush is a July 2026 interview in which Jagger said fans go to gigs to escape and don't want political lectures. Coverage tied it to Bruce Springsteen's anti-Trump speeches, though some outlets say he was simply asked about Springsteen and answered in general terms. Whether you hear a fair point or a bit of a cop-out depends on how much you want your rock stars to speak up. It sits oddly beside his own 2019 comments on Trump.
Then there is Epstein. Fox News reported that US Justice Department files released in December 2025 include photos of Jagger sitting near Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Clinton and Ghislaine Maxwell. The outlet noted that appearing in the files does not necessarily imply wrongdoing, and said it had asked his representative for comment without reporting a reply. A photo is not an allegation, and nothing we read accuses him of anything.
As for the good stuff, the record is mostly the work itself and a long career without a major scandal. In 2023 he told the Wall Street Journal he might give his share of the Stones catalogue to charity rather than sell it, saying you may do some good in the world. That is a musing, not a donation, so we haven't counted it as one. Overall he is a decent pass with one contested comment attached.