Irish singer Imelda May has said that Ronnie Wood's wife Sally helped set up her with her new boyfriend.
Imelda first met the Rolling Stones and Faces guitarist Ronnie when she was a teenager in Dublin.
Iconic rocker Wood, 73, appears on Imelda's latest album, 11 past the hour.
She said: “I met him first when I was 16, in Bruxelles. That’s where I started singing in the basement of Bruxelles.
“He came in one night, jumped up on stage and we jammed, we played together, and it was fabulous we’d a great time.
“Then years later I’d been on the road with Jeff Beck and Jeff said ‘I want to introduce you to Ronnie,’ and when we met I said, ‘We met before but I don’t think you’d remember,’ and he remembered everything.”
Ronnie's wife Sally helped set her up with her new man Niall McNamee, who is an actor and musician from Dundalk, Co Louth.
Imelda, 46, told Miriam O'Callaghan on RTE Radio One: “Aw he’s lovely, he’s gorgeous. It was Sally Wood, Ronnie’s wife, who introduced us.
“She was producing a play and he was the lead actor in it.
“He’s lovely, he’s so sweet and hilarious and talented. An Irishman in England, so he understands, he’s lovely.”
Speaking from her London home, Imelda admitted it has been difficult to be away from her parents during the pandemic.
She added: “My mam had to go into hospital, she has dementia and it was really hard because we couldn’t visit her. And couldn’t explain to her what was happening.
“And we were just beside ourselves with her going into hospital and being afraid we wouldn’t see her again.
“And she caught Covid in hospital and recovered. She’s like Lazarus, she’s brilliant and she’s home now thank God.”
Due to current travel restrictions, Imelda can't go back to Ireland but would like to move back to Dublin when daughter Violet is older.
Imelda's former husband and Violet's dad, talented guitarist Darrel Higham, lives in England near to Imelda's home.
She said about Ireland: “God I can’t tell you how much I miss it. I can’t tell you.
“I will go back for sure, I can’t at the moment obviously because Violet needs to see her dad who lives not far away and I’m not going to disrupt that.
“But when she’s older I’ll go back. I miss it so much, when I go home I nearly kiss the ground.”
