Loose Women star Penny Lancaster has been in a relationship with Rod Stewart for more than 20 years and she looks back on their romance in her new memoir Someone Like Me
Sir Rod Stewart would do anything for wife Penny Lancaster – and over the years he has proved that time and time again. In her new book, Penny recalls how Rod quit drugs, U-turned on a vow not to have kids and even got down on the dodgy knee he damaged playing football to propose, when he had insisted he wouldn’t walk down the aisle again.
Penny, 54, says in her memoir she doesn’t like the phrase that she “tamed him” instead preferring to see Rod and their relationship as “nurtured”. But he has certainly mellowed during their 26 year relationship.
She was upset he had been photographed with Caprice Bourret in Summer 1999 after they had been on some dates, and Rod had been reduced to calling her daily to try to woo her back. While their relationship was still in its infancy Penny told Rod: “If you want to date all these women go ahead, but just so we’re clear it’s not for me.” After laying down more ground rules Rod replied quite: “Okay, lets give it go.”
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He then added: “But don’t think that you’re going to be the next Mrs Stewart. I don’t want to get married and I don’t want anymore babies.” Undaunted Penny then responded saying: “I’m happy to enjoy our time together, but just to let you know that at some point down the line, I will want to have a baby.” Rod hung his head and didn’t reply.
The relationship then continued but at a slow pace as Penny was finishing a photography diploma course at Barking College and Rod was on the road. But they managed a holiday to the Carribean.
Despite his reputation for being “as tight as two coats of paint” Rod surprised Penny by buying a whole wardrobe of clothes for her which were all hung up when she landed in Barbados. Penny recalls they were “all short dresses” as Rod was, and presumably still is, “a leg man”.
Other far flung holidays to the South of France continued their fun in the sun but Penny says initially she found their time in Los Angeles tricky as Rod’s home there had previously been shared with his former wife Rachel Hunter, and she and his kids from previous marriages were around and yet to fully warm to her. Rod has been married three times and has eight children.
“I found having to immerse myself in Rod’s complicated private life was not without its difficulties and tensions. His past relationships felt like a juggernaut thundering towards me.”
Thankfully over time this got easier and after Christmas with the Stewart clan in 1999 she had fully fallen in love with Rod. But as the years went by Penny knew she may have to end the relationship at some point if she wanted to have a family.
In September 2004 though Rod shocked her when they were chatting at their home by saying “Let’s make a baby”. She says her heart “skipped a beat” as at 33 she knew she needed to make a decision about her long term future soon, and had been wondering what to do at the crossroads in her life.
Rod was so serious he even gave up cocaine aged “almost 60” when they began trying for a child. Although his wild days were over, his “party routine” included recreational drugs and he dabbled on the “odd occasion”.
Penny writes: “Cocaine could make him distant and dismissive, and I didn’t like how it changed him. Now, if Rod and I were to plan a baby together, I didn’t consider it a choice that this aspect of Rod’s life could ever be in the mix.”
She didn’t think it could continue if they were to start a family and after a heart to heart Rod agreed to quit and said: “I want to be healthy, for us to stand the best chance.” Penny then fell pregnant in the run up to Christmas 2004 but sadly had a miscarriage days later. However in the Spring shortly before Penny turned 34, Rod proposed at the Eiffel Tower and she became pregnant around this time too.
“For christ sake say something Pen! I’m on my dodgy knee!” Was the funny line Rod pleaded as he proposed with Penny’s parents looking on during the emotional moment.
Alastair, 19, was born later in the year whilst his younger brother Aiden, 14, was the result of successful IVF. But that was not straightforward for the couple.
Rod refused to “do the deed” in the clinic which meant them delivering his test tubes of sperm via a speedy trips to clinic in his Ferrari down Rodeo Drive in LA. Rod also reluctantly ditched his trademark tight pants for boxers to stop his sperm overheating, but his sacrifices were small compared to his wife.
Looking back Penny describes the time as a “physical and emotional juggernaut” and she felt like a “human pincushion” with all the jabs that are needed. In the US there was “crushing disappointment” as two rounds failed so Penny tried again at IVF Clinic London and they eventually had baby joy after one of the three embryos they transferred lasted the distance and Penny was pregnant again.
After giving birth in February 2011 the family was complete. “Watching my boys grow up has given me so much happiness over the years, they are the sunshine in my day,” Penny writes.
Last week Penny gave an interview to promote her new book Someone Like Me and revealed at the very start of their relationship in 1999, singer Rod wooed her during a tour of his Victorian Pre-Raphaelite art collection at his home in Essex. Penny momentarily reclined on his four-poster bed, and the rock icon leant down for a lingering ‘upside-down kiss’, which turned her “whole body” to jelly. Penny describes the new book as a reflection “upon my lessons in life, love and the importance in staying true to yourself through it all.”
Someone Like Me by Penny Lancaster is published by Bloomsbury and out now.
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