How Patti Hansen helped stabilize Keith Richards after years of drug abuse

By the time Keith Richards married model Patti Hansen in 1983, he had already kicked his heroin habit (a 1977 Toronto bust and a subsequent car crash forced the issue). But he was still drinking heavily and living a chaotic rock-star life. Hansen, an 18-year-old from Staten Island when they met, didn’t try to change his core—she just refused to put up with the worst of it.

She gave him a stable home and two daughters, which Richards later said saved his life more than any rehab. “She’s the only one who could ever tell me to fuck off and make me listen,” he once said. Hansen didn’t micromanage his sobriety, but she made it clear that the marriage wouldn’t survive