Rod Stewart has reflected on his marriage to ex-wife Rachel Hunter, admitting that the couple’s relationship was torn apart by their 24-year age gap in the end.
The thrice-married rock star, now 80, met Hunter at Roxbury Club in Los Angeles in 1990, when the model was 21-years-old and he was 45. They married three months later and had two children, before separating in 1999 and officially divorcing in 2006.
He has now admitted that the differences in age between himself and Hunter contributed to the end of their relationship, and took a toll on him personally.
“Rachel left me because she was too young – my sister said I should never have married her in the first place – but it tore me to shreds,” he told The Times.
However, his heartbreak was short-lived as he met his next wife Penny Lancaster, at the Dorchester Hotel the day after his split in 1999.
“She came up and asked for my autograph, so I said, ‘Do you like dancing?’ She was an incredible dancer, gorgeous, 6ft 4in heels, ai-yi-yi. I was very lucky,” he told The Times. “I went out of one marriage and into the next.”
But before he and Lancaster tied the knot in 2007, Stewart said he wanted a period of being freely single. “F***ing right. There were six months between Rachel and Penny because my bass player, who had Penny’s number, wouldn’t give it to me,” he explained.
“He said, ‘All you’re going to do now is shag around.’ And he was right: I had a splendid time in those six months. Now I’m with Penny and she’s got everything I could possibly want.”
Stewart and Lancaster have two children together, and the musician has eight children by five mothers overall. He opened up on how Lancaster’s personality has changed since she became a special constable for the City of London police in 2022.
“I have noticed she’s got more bossy since she’s been a copper,” he admitted. “The kids have noticed, we’ve all noticed. She seems to think she knows everything now.”
The “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” singer has divided opinion with his recent public support for Reform and its leader, Nigel Farage.
