The wild life and times of Anita Pallenberg: “I’ve been called a witch, a slut, a murderer”

Anita Pallenberg’s relationship with the Rolling Stones began in 1965, when she met Brian Jones backstage in Munich and spent the night comforting him after a band dispute. The article traces how she became closely connected to the group, first as Jones’s partner and later as Keith Richards’s, while challenging the idea that she was simply a rock-star “muse”.

Born in Italy during the Second World War, Pallenberg described a childhood spent fleeing the Nazis and feeling prematurely grown up. She was expelled from school at 16, worked as a model and actress, and moved among artists in Rome, New York and Paris before appearing in *Barbarella*. Her years with Richards included family life, addiction and affairs; she also acknowledged a relationship with Mick Jagger while they worked together on a film in 1968.