The Rolling Stones musician said that fame does impact his worldview, as Mulaney suggested: “It is not like most people’s lives. It does affect you.”


Mick Jagger; John Mulaney Credit: Kayla Oaddams/Getty;Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty

Key points
John Mulaney said that Mick Jagger was "not nice" because of his fame in a 2019 standup special.

Jagger said that he "never saw" Mulaney's segment, but admitted that the bizarre experience of fame "does affect you."

"You get disassociated from what people might call 'real life,'" the musician added.

Mick Jagger is finally responding to John Mulaney's standup bit about him.

Seven years after the comedian debuted an extensive segment claiming that Jagger was "not nice" when they collaborated during Mulaney's time on staff at Saturday Night Live, the Rolling Stones legend reflected on his reputation and how fame has affected his worldview in an interview with The New York Times.

When the outlet asked Jagger if he'd seen Mulaney's segment about him, the singer responded, "No, I never saw that."

Mulaney's memorable segment, which was part of his 2019 special Kid Gorgeous, saw the comedian share a hypothesis about the "Sympathy for the Devil" singer based on his time working with him when he hosted SNL in 2012.

"My friends were all like, 'Is he nice?' No! Or maybe he is, for his version of life, 'cause he has a very different life," Mulaney said at the time. "He's played to stadiums of 20,000 people cheering for him like he's a god for 50 years. That must change you as a person. If you do that for 50 years, you're never again gonna be like, 'Um, does anyone have a laptop charger I could borrow?' You know that bulls--- way we all have to talk to get through life?"

Although Jagger hadn't seen Mulaney's special, he responded to the Times' summary of the comedian's hypothesis about fame impacting his personality. "Obviously, it's not normal," the musician said. "It is not like most people's lives. It does affect you. You can become disassociated."

When asked to clarify, Jagger said that fame can dissociate you from "other people" in the world. "A lot of people in show business only hang around with people in show business, because they've got something in common, they can relate to each other, and you get disassociated from what people might call 'real life,'" he said, noting that he has "definitely" grown distant from ordinary folks' experiences. "I mean, you do fight against it. It's a conscious effort."

Jagger also explained how he tries to combat becoming out of touch. "It's quite easy, really," he said. "You go out and walk on the street on your own and do normal things, go and buy The New York Times."

But Jagger doesn't think that these tactics can completely overcome the impact of fame. "That's only temporary because psychologically your actual state of mind is permanently damaged," he said. "Your late 20s and early 30s is a very tough time for people in this business because it's a big ego trip, and you have to have a huge ego to do this. People that do this that don't have huge egos have huge problems because they have to manufacture a completely different [personality]."

Jagger said that he's "not really like my stage persona," and that the ability to switch off the rock star character "comes with age," comparing the experience to that of method actors.

"They take it to the absolute extreme, so they're like the character all the time, and then after the movie's over, they're still in character," he said. "It takes a long time to slough off the character. So which character do you go back to? Is he always going to carry some of that character in his "true" character, whatever that is? This is the show business dichotomy and it's something you learn to live with, and you always hope that you're a so-called normal person underneath."

Mulaney's segment was somewhat sympathetic to Jagger's unique circumstances. "Mick Jagger would go like this, he'd go, 'Diet Coke!' And one would appear in his hand," the comedian said. "Now that's not nice, right? The way I was raised, you're supposed to say, 'May I please have a Diet Coke, please?' and then maybe you will get one. And I bet all of you were taught to say please and thank you."

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