Mick Jagger, the iconic frontman of The Rolling Stones, found himself in a familiar situation when Italian police shut down a party celebrating the completion of his new film. The 82-year-old rock star was on the tiny volcanic island of Stromboli, where he had been filming Three Incestuous Sisters alongside a star-studded cast including Dakota Johnson, Saoirse Ronan, Jessie Buckley, Josh O'Connor, and Isabella Rossellini.
The party took place on Wednesday night, 20 May, at a local venue. However, police arrived and requested that the festivities end due to a local ordinance banning music on Wednesdays. According to local reports, music was playing from a small speaker at an acceptable volume, but it was loud enough to disturb nearby residents.
Local journalist Bartolino Leone explained that the cast was celebrating in a private location while also marking Josh O'Connor's 36th birthday with a cake. 'There were 30 to 40 people at the party and it wasn't too loud, but they were having a drink and celebrating, and as soon as midnight arrived, the neighbours were on to the police,' Leone said.
The Ansa news agency reported that the raid caused 'some confusion, mixed with hilarity,' and that the revellers reluctantly complied with the police instructions. Stromboli has strict rules on amplified music introduced by Riccardo Gullo, mayor of the Aeolian Islands, which includes Stromboli. The cast and crew left the island on Thursday, with Jagger departing by helicopter to his home in the Sicilian province of Syracuse.
Rosa Olivia, a local official for a grassroots tourism association, criticised the police intervention, saying that Jagger and his co-stars should have been welcomed rather than chased away. 'One would have expected a welcome to the guests, or at least a greeting and a thank you for their crucial contribution to the Aeolian economy and their visibility,' she said. The Independent has contacted Gullo and Jagger's representative for comment.
This is not the first time Jagger has had a party raided by police. In 1967, he and bandmate Keith Richards were famously arrested for drug possession at Richards' Redlands estate. The incident became a cause célèbre, with widespread backlash even from conservative members of the press. Richards' conviction was quashed on appeal, and Jagger's prison sentence was reduced to a conditional discharge.
The Rolling Stones are preparing to release their latest album, Foreign Tongues, on 10 July, less than three years after their Grammy-winning record Hackney Diamonds. Three Incestuous Sisters is based on the illustrated gothic novel of the same name by Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveller's Wife, and is directed by Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher in her first English-language feature film. Jagger reportedly plays the lighthouse keeper, whose son, played by O'Connor, disrupts the relationship between three sisters living in isolation on the island.
