Will Ronnie be a better dad to his twins than to his other children?
His fellow Stones think he’s way too old at 68 and his ex-wife isn’t overjoyed. So ...
THERE have already been congratulations from best mate Rod Stewart, who fathered his last child aged 66. And the father-to-be is proudly boasting that he has gone one better than his pal Paul McCartney, who was ‘only’ 61 when he fathered daughter Beatrice. In all, it is fair to say that Ronnie Wood, the 68-year-old Rolling Stones guitarist, is feeling entirely cock-a-hoop with delight at the moment. Friends say that he was as astonished as everyone else when his wife Sally Humphreys, 37, let him know that he was to be a father again — of twins.
‘Ronnie was shocked because he didn’t think that it was going to happen, but he is very, very proud of himself,’ said a source. ‘He is saying things like: “I may be 68 but I’m not firing blanks.”’ The news was announced to the rest of the Rolling Stones on Sunday and they are said to be: ‘Completely non-plussed, especially Keith (Richards) who feels that they are more at grandparent age than parent age.’
Indeed, when the babies arrive in June, they will be younger than Ronnie’s troupe of nine grandchildren ranging from 15 to three months old — a mind-boggling thought.
It’s fair to say the previous Mrs Ronnie Wood, rock chick Jo, is less than delighted by the news. ‘Gobsmacked’ is the word used to describe her reaction yesterday.
Although amicable nowadays following their very public and messy split in 2008, when Ronnie ran off with a Russian waitress days after their daughter Leah’s wedding, Jo nevertheless hasn’t been gushing congratulations.
‘Ronnie did go around saying they weren’t going to have children, and then suddenly Sally is pregnant with twins,’ is her reaction, I am told.
Possibly significantly, neither Jo nor Leah — both prolific Twitter users — chose to refer to the big news online yesterday.
Approached for comment, Jo’s agent Julia Champion told me: ‘She just doesn’t want to comment on it — it’s nothing to do with her.’
It is true that Sally has made no bones from the very start of the relationship that she wanted babies. ‘I would like children but not yet,’ she said just before they were married in 2012.
Two together will be quite a handful. Multiple births are increasingly common these days, not least because of the general increase in IVF babies, so there are support networks out there.
Ronnie, who is said to be utterly devoted to Sally, was happy to start again. For, let’s face it, when it comes to fatherhood, Ronnie could benefit from a chance to do things properly this time.
He wasn’t much of a Dad to his first brood: Jamie, 41, who is Jo’s first son by a previous relationship, Jesse, 39, from his marriage to first wife Krissy, and Leah, 37, and Tyrone, 32, from his marriage to Jo.
He famously forbade them to eat meringues, for instance, because he often mistook the crumbs for rocks of cocaine, and he and Jo surrounded them with hell-raising, rock ’n’ roll chaos, punctuated by long months of absence when he was on the road.
His first family was raised between London, LA and New York, with nannies and boarding school filling the gaps while their parents were partying. Eldest son Jamie, now a successful art gallery owner, clocked up 15 schools before eventually being expelled aged 16. This time around, it will all be different.
With Sally, a theatre producer, Ronnie is clean and sober. They live a delightfully middle-class existence in a home in Holland Park, West London. She is the daughter of two classical musicians, who was head girl at King Edward VI Grammar School in Handsworth, Birmingham. She barely drinks, doesn’t smoke and loves to bake.
Evenings are spent playing backgammon, doing jigsaws and watching TV box sets. Ronnie particularly liked the American drama Breaking Bad, and introduced Mick Jagger to the melodramatic delights of Game Of Thrones.
‘Sally has transformed Ronnie,’ says the long-standing friend. ‘For instance, he now goes to the dentist regularly like a normal person whereas before he used to use glue to put on his crowns if they fell off. He has what you would recognise as a normal life, waking and sleeping at normal hours and he actually eats, which he didn’t used to for years. They go on normal holidays together, they go to the theatre and to art galleries.’
He’s not a complete angel however: Ronnie remains an enthusiastic smoker, and was seen waving what appeared to be a fat ‘spliff’ (a cannabis cigarette) while on stage with the Stones in Macau last year. Compared to the Ronnie of old, however, he has undergone a complete transformation.
‘He may look a bit ancient, but Ronnie is still a kid in many ways — he’s got a sort of arrested development,’ the friend added. ‘The fact is, he’s just ready to grow up now and these babies are going to be the making of him.’
But what about the rest of the family? How do they feel about this new addition?
Ronnie’s son Jamie, who has four children of his own, told me: ‘It’s a nice surprise. I love kids and am happy for anyone that has them. I am delighted by the news and wish them all the luck in the world.’
He went on: ‘As far as the age goes, I didn’t fancy it at 40, but I’ve just had a new one and it’s been amazing. As I said to Dad this morning, it gets better as you get older!’
What an unlikely turn of events this is, though. But then everything about Ronnie Wood’s ‘May to December’ pairing is unlikely.
He and Sally met after Ronnie painfully exited his long marriage to Jo and fell headlong into a spectacularly messy midlife crisis.
He had a volatile romance with a Russian waitress — which came complete with drinking, rows and even allegations in 2009 that he had tried to throttle her during a boozy row. After her, he dated a Brazilian model and then, briefly, an Irish student. All were in their 20s.
And during those five years his brothers Art and Ted, his mum Lizzie and his first wife Krissy all died. In 2009 he went into the Priory for his eighth stint of rehab.
Given that he had started drinking heavily at 14 and been notorious for his drug consumption for decades — Keith Richards would say: ‘The party begins and ends with Ronnie’ — not everyone thought he could do it.
‘Lots of people went: “Oh, give him a couple of weeks and he’ll be back on it,”’ Ronnie told an interviewer. ‘There were a lot of doubting Thomases, and there was something inside me that thought: “I’ve got to do this and prove them wrong.” ’
(I remember when I interviewed him after his sixth — and ultimately unsuccessful — stint at rehab he showed me a fax from Keith Richards which read: ‘Rehab is for quitters.’ It was never quite clear whether Keith was joking.)
Amid the mayhem and his embarrassing romances, his relationship with his children broke down; they were initially furious with him when he walked out on Jo.
He told an interviewer: ’I’ve had my differences with them. I used to worry “I’ve lost my family.” They hated me for a while, but they’re very resilient. They’re all grown and they’ve seen me come through and now they say: “OK Dad, we love you, we’re on your side.” ’
All of them approved of Sally, of course. As he said with pride in 2013: ‘She’s a proper girl, Sally; a good working girl with her theatre work and so on. It’s been fantastic, being with her. We’ve had such a great adventure together.’
They started dating in 2012 and got married in December of that year in a small ceremony in Claridge’s.
They had actually met nine years previously when he, a keen artist, was putting on an art exhibition at the Drury Lane theatre where she was working.
She knew who he was but had never been a Stones fan, in fact, she’s not into music, only theatre.
‘I thought he was funny and very sweet,’ she said in a rare interview. ‘I also thought he was a good artist, and that was pretty much it.’
They would meet up occasionally for a coffee and a chat over the years that followed. In 2011 he asked her on a ‘dinner’ date which turned out to be the wedding of Paul McCartney
The hell-raiser has cleaned up his act ‘If this is what Sally wants, he wants it too’
and Nancy Shevell — certainly a first date to remember. The relationship remained chaste, however — ‘we didn’t even hold hands’ she said — but weeks later she received a handwritten letter from Ronnie, telling her how he felt about her and asking if they could have a proper relationship.
After a period of doubt — ‘I was worried about the age difference and the fame’ — she agreed to start their romance.
She added: ‘I know the age gap is there. And I wish it wasn’t, but it is. I think I had to say “I can’t do this because of the age”, or I just had to let it go and take it all on board. At no point, years ago, did I say to myself: “I think I’ll go out with someone twice my age,” but that is what has happened.’
‘He’s on my level completely. He’s a very nice and caring person. He’s very funny, kind and affectionate and welcoming.’
She added: ‘It’s Ronnie who is famous. I’m just with him. I mean, you can’t help but sometimes read the stuff online, where they say you’re wearing a nightmare pair of shoes or that you’re older/ younger/thinner/fatter than whoever. But you can’t obsess over it, because it would drive you mad.
‘And actually, if that is the worst thing that is happening in my world then really, I am tremendously lucky.’ The two of them see a lot of Ronnie’s grandchildren. His friend tells me: ‘He is a far more involved grandfather than he was father.’ Sally is known as ‘Auntie’ — as granny would surely be too odd.
There are huge family get-togethers at Christmas and for birthdays. ‘Life is all about family. I don’t think there is much point to anything if you don’t have that,’ Sally said.
A friend said that Sally had mentioned Ronnie felt ‘guilty’ at the idea that he might be depriving her of the chance to have a family, and so gladly went along with the idea of starting again at his advanced age.
‘The simple fact is that he loves her and if this is what she wants then he wants it, too. He is looking forward madly to all of it.
‘He is brilliant with the grandchildren, always buying them slightly madcap gifts. He loves having them around backstage. He is very much ready to be a dad.’