The Beggars Banquet fan site article that claimed Mick Jagger orchestrated Brian Jones's ouster

A 1999 piece on the Beggars Banquet fan site, titled “The Last Stone,” argued that Mick Jagger systematically isolated Brian Jones from the band’s creative decisions as early as Aftermath (1966). The author used studio logs and interviews with session musicians to suggest Jagger and Keith Richards pressured Jones into increasing drug use, then used his unreliability as justification for firing him in June 1969—just weeks before his death.

The article sparked a years-long war among fans. Some called it revisionist, pointing out that Jones’s own psychological decline predated Jagger’s rise as a de facto bandleader. Others claimed it was the first honest look at the band’s internal cruelty, and the site’s moderators eventually locked the comment thread after threats of doxxing.