Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
UNSEEN SNAPS OF RONNIE’S NO1 AS A DAD Papa was a Rolling Stone
THESE touching previously unseen snaps of Ronnie Wood with his first child Jesse prove he’s always rocked when it comes to being a doting dad.
The Rolling Stone raised a few eyebrows when he became a father to twins last year at the age of 68.
That brought his total number of children over the years to six with three different women.
But these tender images of a then 29-year-old Ronnie playing with sixmonth-old Jesse in 1977 show the hard living old rocker has always been a family man at heart.
The snaps, recently discovered in an archive, were taken in Malibu near a beach home he was renting with first wife Krissy Findlay.
And seeing them again for the first time in 40 years made Ronnie smile.
“These are very sweet pictures. I can remember that shoot in Malibu Colony,” he told us.
“They certainly bring back some sweet memories of Jesse as a lovely little youngster.
TENDER
“Only the width of the bottoms of my trousers has changed!”
Jesse – now 40 and himself a musician – looks cute as a button as his dad lifts him up in the air in one tender shot in the Californian sunshine.
In another, Ronnie raises a glass to toast his first child as tragic model Krissy, who died of a suspected valium overdose in 2005, sits alongside them.
Speaking back in 1977, the megastar told how he and Krissy had to choose Jesse’s name on the spot because they thought they were going to have a daughter.
“We were expecting a girl and we couldn’t very well call him Amber,” Ronnie explained.
“The nurse was insisting on a name on the spot and Jesse James came to mind.” The couple split in 1978. Ronnie went on to have two children with second wife Jo – daughter Leah, 38, and son Tyrone, 33 – and he adopted her son Jamie, 42, as a baby.
He split from Jo, 62, in 2011 after a fling with Russian model Katia Ivanova and married theatre producer Sally Humphreys, 39 – three decades his junior – in 2012 with Rod Stewart as best man. Then
it was back to the only slightly less whirlwind world of nappy changes and sleepless nights last year when he became a father to twin daughters Gracie Jane and Alice Rose.
Nowadays he can often be seen pushing his girls’ pram near the family’s London home looking as proud as punch.
“I’m the burper, walker, nappy changer and I’m still trying to work out when I can get to sleep in
I’m burper and nappy changer, soaking up every moment RONNIE WOOD ON FATHERHOOD AT 70
between all that,” he said last year. “I have played guitar to them, and when I get round to it I will do some drawings.
“At the moment I’m just soaking up every moment we have.”
LUCKY
Ronnie recently showed us a glimpse of his rock ’n’ roll credentials by celebrating his 70th birthday with a raucous bash at a West London mansion.
A host of star pals attended,
DAD AT 68 With Sally and twins including bandmate Keith Richards, Bob Geldof, Spice Girl Geri Horner, and Fearne Cotton who is married to Jesse.
The June knees-up took place despite Ronnie being diagnosed with lung cancer earlier this year.
He needed a five hour operation to remove a tumour. The rocker said: “I was bloody lucky.
“But then I’ve always had a very strong guardian angel looking out for me. By rights, I shouldn’t be here.”
Last week he told Twitter fans he was “feeling great” and looking forward to The Rolling Stones’ European tour this month. But it’s
not just the music that keeps him going.
When he talks about his baby girls, he sounds just as smitten as he looked with firstborn Jesse all those years ago.
“When the twins come into our bed and we’re all snuggled up together, that, for me, is wonderful – my idea of heaven,” he said.
“It’s special. The girls are so cuddly and gorgeous. I’m a lucky man.”