Has Jerry found her perfect guy?
FIfTeeN years after parting from Mick Jagger, statuesque Jerry Hall is still looking for satisfaction. While men have come and gone, she has remained stubbornly single. And unlike many of her maturing contemporaries such as Madonna, the Texan beauty has eschewed plastic surgery and prefers to leave her wrinkles untouched.
Which makes her latest choice of male companion all the more intriguing. for not only is her new admirer a distinguished evolutionary biologist, but Professor Armand Leroi, New Zealand-born of Dutch parents, also specialises in the science of beauty and ageing.
Indeed, handsome Armand, 49, has offered his views on who he thinks has the ‘perfect face’ — alas, it wasn’t Jerry but Canadian model Saira Mohan.
The academic is the author of a successful book called Mutant about evolutionary genetics, and has presented TV documentaries on Channel 4. He also produced a controversial paper suggesting shorter people are likely to live longer. But all that does not seem to have put off lofty six-footer Jerry as they stepped out on their first public outing at the Costa Book Awards in Quaglino’s restaurant, St James’s — as my exclusive picture shows.
‘Armand and I are very good friends,’ she tells me over champagne. ‘We met through our literary connections as he is such a brilliant writer.’
Bibliophile Jerry, 57, herself a former Costa competition judge, has been unattached since splitting from Australian multi-millionaire property man Warwick Hemsley, 60, in 2012.
Jerry recently said their relationship failed because of the 10,000-mile difference between their two respective families. But intriguingly, she was in Australia herself last month reprising her stage role in The Graduate.
‘Just because I was in Australia didn’t mean I saw Warwick. It’s a big place and I was in Melbourne and he was elsewhere — we didn’t meet,’ she tells me. ‘ We’re still friends though.’
friends say diplomat’s son Armand, who teaches at Imperial College in South Kensington, is the perfect companion for Jerry. ‘He is good looking, well-read and sophisticated,’ says a chum.