Paul Young
As singer PAul Young embarks on a brand new tour, he tells us why his late wife, Stacey, who passed away earlier this year, would definitely approve of him going on the road
He’s just winding up a smash hit tour but that’s doesn’t mean Paul Young will be laying down his hat for a rest. He’s then straight back out on the road until May 2019 with his Tex Mex band, Los Pacaminos.
It’s on stage where he’s most at home and where he knows his late wife Stacey would wish him to be. “Stacey was always very supportive,” says Paul. “There’s absolutely no question that she’d want me to be performing. Even when she was ill and I’d had an album released, she insisted that I go on tour. She never wanted me to stop because she wasn’t well.”
Stacey, a former model whom Paul met in 1983 on the set of his video for the single Come Back and Stay, sadly passed away in January having been diagnosed with brain cancer two years earlier.
“It was the same condition as Tessa Jowell,” explains Paul. “It’s been a tough year but the toughest time was really the two years from her diagnosis. We made the best of what time we had but afterwards, the children and I decided we wanted to get working and do something positive.”
Paul is father to daughters Levi (31) and Layla (23), and son Grady (22). He is also stepfather to Stacey’s son Jude (11), to whom she gave birth when they split for three years in the ‘noughties’ and Stacey was involved in another relationship with Israeli businessman, Ilan Slazenger. Being the lovely man he is, Paul was happy to welcome Jude into the family fold when he and Stacey got back together.
“It’s not such a big thing,” said Paul in 2010, shortly after he and Stacey reconciled. “He’s Stacey’s and with our other children they are all brothers and sisters at the end of the day.”
Paul (62) says he’s a bit of a softie when it comes to the kids. “I’m going to have to toughen up,” he smiles. “But we’re very, very close. When I’m home, I like to cook for them and we all sit around the table catching up on each other’s news.”
Not that he’ll be home much over the next six months or so. As he sings in his most famous song, Wherever I Lay My Hat, That’s My Home.
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