LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards on Wednesday apologized for suggesting that eight times father Mick Jagger get a vasectomy.

Richards, 74, who has four children and five grandchildren himself, called band mate Jagger “a randy old bastard” in an interview with the Wall Street Journal magazine, released on Wednesday.

“It’s time for the snip — you can’t be a father at that age. Those poor kids!,” he said of the Rolling Stones frontman.

Jagger, 74, became a father for the eighth time in December 2016 when his dancer girlfriend Melanie Hamrick gave birth to a son in New York.

“I deeply regret the comments I made about Mick in the WSJ which were completely out of line. I have of course apologized to him in person,” Richards said in a Twitter statement.

Richards and Jagger, who have written most of the Rolling Stones songs over the rock band’s five-decade career, are known for their love-hate relationship.

“It’s been up and downhill, but if I’m talking about the Rolling Stones, there ain’t a frontman like Jagger,” he told the WSJ magazine in the interview for its March 10 edition. “Don’t matter how many bones you want to pick out of him, he’s amazing to work with.”