Rolling Stone Bill Wyman can't get no satis-fag-tion

Oct 25 2009

IT’S only smoke and tar, but he doesn’t like it.

Ex-Rolling Stone Bill Wyman has quit smoking after 55 years.

The legendary bass player revealed he has kicked the habit after medics warned he could die from incurable lung damage.

Wyman, who celebrated his 73rd birthday yesterday, was told he was close to contracting emphysema, a deadly disease that leaves heavy smokers gasping for breath.

Victims can be left housebound and reliant on oxygen supplies. In the most serious cases the condition can be fatal – emphysema kills an estimated 40,000 Britons a year.

Wyman has puffed his way through 30 to 40 fags a day for more than half a century, and gave up gradually over a year.

“I was a heavy smoker for 55 years,” the father-of-three told the Sunday Mercury. “But between last summer and now I have slowly cut down to nothing and now I don’t smoke. I did it myself.”

Wyman played with the Stones for 31 years before he left the supergroup in 1993. The band’s wild, hedonistic lifestyle prompted moral outrage in the 1960s and sparked the notorious press campaign “Would you let your daughter marry a Rolling Stone?”

But Wyman’s decision to quit smoking could make him an unlikely pin-up boy for Government anti-smoking campaigns.

Paul Hooper, regional tobacco policy manager for the NHS in the West Midlands, said Wyman had set a tremendous example for smokers to follow.

“We have the greatest admiration for anyone who quits smoking,” he said. “Any role models we can have are great.”

The septuagenarian ex-Stone this week launches a nationwide tour with his band the Rhythm Kings, and will be playing Birmingham Town Hall on November 13.

A one-time addict of Dunhill Menthols and Saint Moritz cigarettes, Wyman disclosed he gave up following a stark health warning.

“I was getting a bit breathless, especially going up stairs and things like that,” he says.