So much better, so much more fun than it used to be. Cuz remember in the 70s, the 80s, even the early 90s, you had to spend hours on end in a studio and ; For decades, Rod Stewart lived the kind of love life that always kept tabloids busy. Supermodels, heartbreak, ; ; marriages, and second chances.
But recently, the rock legend made a surprisingly honest confession about the one woman he believes he never should have let slip away. And considering everything Stewart has experienced over the years, that admission caught a lot of people off guard. Because behind the fame, the sold-out concerts, and the larger-than-life personality, was a relationship that left scars deeper than most fans ever realized.
So, who was the woman Rod Stewart could never truly forget? Let’s find out. Rod Stewart’s brutal early struggles. When Rod Stewart entered the world in North London on January 10th, 1945, World War II was still raging across Europe. Life in Britain was tough, uncertain, and shaped by wartime struggle. But inside the Stewart household, things felt very different.
His father worked as a construction manager, his mother stayed home raising the children, and Rod, the youngest of five, quickly became the center of attention. Being the baby of the family came with plenty of perks. He was spoiled endlessly, wrapped in affection, and protected from the harsher realities of life for as long as possible.
Years later, Stewart would look back on those early days and describe his childhood as fantastically happy. That happiness, though, also made growing up a little harder. Responsibility did not exactly come naturally to him. Inside the Stewart home, two passions ruled above everything else, soccer and music.
The family lived and breathed both. On the soccer field, young Rod stood out immediately. He was aggressive, talented, competitive, and fearless. People around him genuinely believed he had the ability to make something of himself in the sport. Music pulled at him just as strongly. The Stewart family adored American singer Al Jolson, but the artist who truly changed Rod’s life was Little Richard.
The wild energy, the voice, the swagger, it completely grabbed hold of him. Rod became obsessed. Seeing how serious his son had become, his father eventually bought him his first guitar, unknowingly placing another possible future in his hands. Before long, Rod Stewart found himself torn between two dreams.
At 15 years old, he made a decision that would terrify most parents. He dropped out of school to chase a career in professional soccer. School had never suited him anyway. In Rod, the autobiography, Stewart admitted nobody was surprised when he failed his 11-plus exam and ended up transferring to William Grimshaw Secondary Modern School.
He tried to settle in, but he never felt connected to academics or structure. By the end of his school years, things had only gotten worse. He constantly clashed with teachers, and eventually his behavior landed him in serious trouble. Stewart was even caned before finally leaving school behind for good.
He walked away with no qualifications, no clear plan, and plenty of uncertainty. Still, he believed soccer might save him. Stewart earned a tryout with Brentford FC, a third division club at the time. For years, rumors floated around claiming the club wanted to sign him, but Stewart later admitted the truth was much harsher.
After the tryout, they never even bothered calling him back. That rejection could have crushed him. Instead, it pushed him toward music. Oddly enough, Stewart was not completely devastated about losing his shot at soccer. ; ; Part of the reason came down to something surprisingly simple. He loved partying.
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In his mind, a musician’s lifestyle sounded far more forgiving than an athlete’s. Singing seemed like the one career where drinking heavily would not automatically destroy his future. So, he pivoted completely. The problem was that dreams of rock stardom did not pay bills. To help support the family, Stewart started working at his father’s newspaper stand.
By then, his father had left construction behind and purchased the shop where the family also lived upstairs. Rod handled newspaper deliveries, spending his mornings hauling papers around London while still clinging to fantasies of becoming a singer someday. Music remained the goal, but reality kept dragging him into ordinary jobs.
After leaving the newspaper stand, Stewart took a screen printing job at a wallpaper company through his father’s connections. For a while, things actually seemed promising. The pay was decent, especially for someone his age, and Stewart even contributed money toward household expenses. Then disaster struck in the most ironic way possible.
He discovered he was color blind. For someone working in wallpaper printing, that was a catastrophe. The job quickly fell apart, forcing Stewart back into the cycle of temporary work and uncertainty. He bounced from one strange job to another. He worked with picture frames, ; ; spent time training as an electrician, and even picked up occasional work at Highgate Cemetery.
The cemetery job seemed unusual enough, but somehow his next position became even darker. Stewart eventually found himself working in a funeral home, surrounded by cadavers and grieving families, while still quietly dreaming about fame and sold-out concerts. Even through all of it, he refused to let go of music.
At just 16 years old, he joined a band called The Raiders, and suddenly it felt like his life might finally be moving in the right direction. The group landed an audition with legendary producer Joe Meek, one of the biggest names in British music at the time. For Stewart, this was supposed to be the opportunity that changed everything.
Instead, it turned into humiliation. During the audition, Meek heard Stewart singing and reacted in a way that would scar almost any young musician. He stormed into the studio, covered his ears, and began screaming for Stewart to stop. According to the story, Meek would not calm down until Rod packed up and left.
It was brutal. For a teenager already struggling to find direction, the rejection felt deeply personal. Stewart likely walked out feeling humiliated and furious, but history would later prove that Joe Meek’s judgment was far from flawless. After all, Meek also passed on working with David Bowie, and famously dismissed The Beatles as nothing more than noise.
Still, knowing that later probably did little to ease the sting at the time. Stewart carried that frustration with him and started drifting into London’s growing counterculture scene. He became involved in anti-nuclear protests, surrounded himself with beatniks, and moved into a communal lifestyle filled with activism, politics, and rebellion.
From the outside, it looked like Rod Stewart had become deeply committed to social causes and world peace. But Stewart later admitted there was another motivation behind all the protesting. He mainly went because he wanted to meet women. And in the middle of that chaotic chapter of his life, he eventually met someone who would change his future forever.
Though not without bringing painful consequences along with it. Rod Stewart’s most controversial romance. In 1962, Rod Stewart met an artist named Susanna Boffey at a nightclub, and the relationship moved fast almost immediately. They were young, reckless, and caught up in the excitement of London’s growing music and nightlife scene.
Before long, Boffey discovered she was pregnant. For most people, that kind of news changes everything. But Stewart was only 17 years old, and instead of stepping into the role of father or husband, he pulled away completely. Backed by his family, he decided he wanted no part of settling down. While Boffey prepared to face motherhood alone, Stewart simply walked away.
Years later, the painful reality of what happened during that chapter of Boffey’s life became public knowledge. In 2013, Stewart released a song called Brighton Beach, describing it as a tribute to a real woman from his past. It did not take long for people to realize the song was about Baffy, the mother of his first child.
But when she finally heard it, she was furious. The song painted their relationship in a soft, romantic light, and even suggested her father played a role in tearing them apart. Baffy remembered things very differently. According to her, Stewart abandoned her the moment he learned she was carrying his child. For Stewart, Brighton Beach may have represented youthful romance and nostalgia.
For Baffy, it was the exact place where her boyfriend severed ties and left her to face an impossible situation on her own. Things quickly spiraled after that. Once her landlord learned she was unmarried and pregnant, she was evicted. Suddenly homeless and vulnerable, Baffy ended up in a home for unwed teenage mothers, where young women were expected to perform hard labor in exchange for shelter.
Even through all that heartbreak, part of her still believed Stewart might come back. Then came November 1963. Baffy gave birth alone at Whittington Hospital in London. Stewart eventually showed up after the birth, but not because he was suddenly ready to embrace fatherhood. Instead, ; ; he made a shocking proposal.
He asked if she would give the baby up for adoption so the two of them could continue dating. Baffy did eventually place the child for adoption, but it had nothing to do with saving the relationship. By then, the damage was already done. While that painful chapter unfolded behind him, Stewart threw himself deeper into music.
He became immersed in the folk scene, busking on London streets, and chasing any opportunity he could find. Eventually, he teamed up with folk singer Wiz Jones, and together they traveled through places like Paris and Barcelona, living the kind of wandering, unstable lifestyle common among struggling musicians at the time.
Barcelona, however, ; ; brought trouble. Stewart and the other musicians were practically surviving day-to-day, sleeping rough, and living under bridges whenever necessary. Local authorities eventually decided he looked more like a vagrant than an artist, and before long, Stewart found himself deported from the country altogether.
Still, even setbacks like that could not pull him away from music. A few years earlier, Stewart had picked up the harmonica almost casually, never realizing how important it would become. That skill helped him land a spot in a band called The Dimensions, where he contributed both harmonica and vocals. And while performing with the group, he suddenly found himself sharing venues with one of the biggest acts in Britain, The Rolling Stones.
For Stewart, watching Mick Jagger command a crowd up close was a turning point. Standing backstage, seeing the swagger, confidence, and chaos surrounding rock stardom, he knew exactly what he wanted. He no longer dreamed about simply becoming a singer. He wanted to become a rock star. The problem was that success still seemed miles away.
By 1964, Stewart remained largely unknown, and was still busking at Twickenham Railway Station, playing harmonica for spare change. One day, after watching a performance by musician Long John Baldry, Stewart happened to be playing at the station when Baldry himself walked by and heard him. That random moment changed everything.
Baldry was impressed enough to invite Stewart to join his band as a harmonica player. Then he heard him sing and realized there was something much bigger there. Stewart quickly became a permanent member of the group and suddenly doors started opening. Performing with Baldry eventually earned Stewart a slot opening for the Rolling Stones, putting him even closer to the world he desperately wanted to break into.
From there, he joined the Jeff Beck Group and later became part of Faces in 1969, all while quietly building a solo career on the side. It was an exhausting grind, but Stewart thrived on it. He juggled bands, tours, recordings, and solo projects all at once, determined to leave his mark on one of the most competitive industries in the world.
Eventually, the hard work paid off in spectacular fashion. Stewart exploded into mainstream success in America, turning into one of the biggest rock stars of the 1970s. Songs like Tonight’s the Night and Da Ya Think I’m Sexy made him a household name. And with fame came everything he had imagined.
Money, parties, celebrity circles, and endless attention from women. By Stewart’s own admission, his romantic life became so chaotic during his Faces years that he eventually lost count of how many women he had been involved with. One of those women was actor Joanna Lumley, long before she became internationally famous for Absolutely Fabulous.
Ironically, ; ; when they first met, Lumley had no idea Stewart was a rock star. She later explained that she struggled with facial recognition and genuinely did not recognize him. Still, she agreed to go out with him. And by all accounts, Stewart left a positive impression on her. Lumley later recalled riding with him in one of his fast sports cars when she suggested speeding past slower drivers.
Stewart refused, calmly explaining that owning a faster car did not give someone the right to behave rudely on the road. It was a surprisingly grounded moment from a man already surrounded by excess. Their relationship eventually faded for a reason Stewart later admitted with some embarrassment.
Lumley’s refined, upper-class accent intimidated him. Compared to his rough North London roots, he felt out of place around her. Before long, Stewart found himself single again while trouble also began brewing inside Faces. By the mid-1970s, the band was clearly falling apart. And when the group officially split in 1975, Stewart fully committed himself to a solo career.
The timing could not have been better. His ballad Sailing became a massive success across the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Even though the song failed to make much impact in America, Stewart was already becoming one of Britain’s biggest stars. He moved comfortably through elite celebrity circles, partying alongside actors, musicians, and socialites.
One of those celebrities was actor and author Joan Collins, who decided Stewart should meet her friend Britt Ekland, the stunning Swedish actress famous for appearing as a Bond girl in The Man with the Golden Gun. The attraction between Stewart and Ekland was immediate. Before long, they were living together, and Ekland quickly became one of the biggest inspirations behind Stewart’s music.
While searching for ideas for a new song, Stewart found himself drawing heavily from their passionate relationship. The result became one of the biggest hits of his career. Tonight’s the Night. The song was seductive, provocative, and packed with innuendo. It also finally gave Stewart the breakthrough he had been chasing in America.
Tonight’s the Night shot to number one in both the United States and Canada, transforming him from a successful British rocker into a full-blown international superstar. But even as his career soared, his personal life remained chaotic. During their relationship, Ekland introduced Stewart to her friend, actress Susan George.
Before long, Stewart began having an affair with her, effectively destroying his relationship with Ekland. Stewart later offered a very different explanation for the breakup, claiming things soured after Ekland once tried putting makeup on him, something he felt clashed with his macho image. But for many people, the affair seemed like the far more believable reason.
Not long after the split, Stewart moved into another high-profile relationship, this time with blonde model Alana Collins, who had previously been married to actor George Hamilton. Unlike many of Stewart’s earlier romances, this one became serious enough to lead to marriage. Ironically, even at 34 years old, Stewart’s father believed his son was still too immature to settle down.
Years later, Stewart admitted his father may have been right. Part of him felt he had rushed into marriage before fully getting the wild lifestyle out of his system. Still, the wedding went ahead and the couple soon welcomed two children. Daughter Kimberly Stewart and son Sean Stewart. For a moment, it looked like Rod Stewart might finally be settling into family life.
But the stability did not last very long. Before long, Stewart began another relationship, this time with model Kelly Emberg. Behind Rod Stewart’s wild reputation, Rod Stewart’s relationship with Sports Illustrated model Kelly Emberg ended up becoming the final blow to his marriage with Alana Collins.
The divorce hit Collins hard. Years later, she admitted the breakup completely shattered her emotionally. And the fact that Emberg was 15 years younger only made the pain worse. Stewart himself later confessed that ending relationships was never something he handled well. In his own words, he had been a coward when it came to breaking up with women.
Still, even after the collapse of another marriage, Stewart did not exactly slow down. By that stage in his life, a clear pattern had emerged. Stewart undeniably had a type. Tall, glamorous blonde models. But while he seemed endlessly fascinated by romance and attraction, fatherhood often appeared to complicate things for him.
His relationship with Kelly Emberg followed a familiar path. Once Emberg became pregnant, the relationship gradually lost its spark. And Stewart’s attention started drifting elsewhere. Instead of settling into domestic life, he threw himself even deeper into the wild celebrity lifestyle he had spent years building.
During that era, ; ; Stewart openly bragged about the sheer number of women he was sleeping with. He owned a bright yellow Lamborghini and frequently drove from his home in Windsor into London, a trip that took around 45 minutes, simply to spend nights at his favorite nightclub, One particular story perfectly captured the lifestyle he was living at the time.
After meeting a woman at the club one night, Stewart drove her all the way back to Windsor, spent the night with her, then drove her straight back to London afterward without even stopping for breakfast. But the night did not end there. After dropping her off, he returned to the club, found another woman, and drove all the way back to Windsor again for round two.
Stewart later joked that he waited until the following morning before sleeping with the second woman, apparently believing that details somehow made the story more respectable. As outrageous as his lifestyle became, Stewart somehow managed to avoid the self-destruction that consumed many rock stars of his generation.
He often credited two things for keeping him grounded enough to survive, soccer and women. According to Stewart, those passions stopped him from falling too deeply into hard drugs or extreme alcoholism. In his mind, excessive addiction would have ruined his ability to play sports and damaged his sex life, two things he valued enormously.
At least on some level, Stewart understood why so many women were drawn to him. He admitted that fame played a massive role. Being a wealthy, internationally famous rock star naturally opened doors that most men would never experience. But he also acknowledged a darker truth beneath all the attention. He had not always treated women particularly well.
Stewart often defended himself by arguing that most men would behave similarly if they lived under constant celebrity temptation. In his view, fame simply amplified behavior that already existed. Then came another woman who fit his now famous pattern perfectly. In the late 1980s, Stewart met New Zealand model Rachel Hunter at a nightclub in Los Angeles.
She was tall, blonde, stunningly beautiful, and more than two decades younger than him. Hunter was only 21 years old at the time. There was one complication, though. She was already in a relationship with musician Kip Winger, bassist for Alice Cooper’s band. But once Hunter got to know Stewart, things moved incredibly quickly.
She soon left Winger, and just 3 months after meeting, she and Stewart were married. For Stewart, the relationship felt different from many of the others that had come before. He became convinced Hunter was the woman he would finally settle down with. The couple quickly started a family, welcoming daughter Renee in 1992 ; ; and son Liam in 1994.
And unlike many assumptions people later made, it was not Stewart who destroyed the marriage through infidelity. In fact, Stewart has often insisted Rachel Hunter was the one woman he never cheated on. Instead, it was Hunter who eventually walked away from the relationship in 1999. According to Stewart, she grew tired of the celebrity lifestyle and no longer wanted to live inside the chaos that came with being married to one of the world’s most famous rock stars.
She wanted a quieter, more normal life. Her decision devastated him. For all of Stewart’s stories about casual relationships and endless partying, the breakup with Hunter genuinely seemed to wound him deeply. But eventually, as he always had, ; ; he moved forward. In 1999, while preparing for a tour, Stewart’s team hired a photographer named Penny Lancaster.
She was not only a photographer, but also a successful model, towering over Stewart with her striking height and presence. The chemistry between them appeared almost immediately. Oddly enough, Stewart’s own bandmates tried to stop the romance from happening at first. One of his bass players realized Stewart was emotionally rebounding from the collapse of his marriage with Hunter and feared he would simply fall back into old habits.
After getting Lancaster’s phone number, the bassist reportedly kept it hidden from Stewart for 6 months, convinced that the singer was in no state to begin another serious relationship. Looking back, Stewart later admitted his bandmate had probably been right. Still, once Stewart finally connected with Lancaster, he became completely captivated by her.
Trying to impress her, he once took her shopping at a Dolce & Gabbana store and encouraged her to buy an entirely new wardrobe. By the time they left, Stewart had spent roughly $12,000 in a single trip. There was, however, one strange condition attached to the extravagant gift. Stewart told her she could only wear the clothes when they were together.
Despite the unusual possessiveness, Lancaster stayed. Her family, though, was far less convinced. By then, Stewart’s reputation as a notorious womanizer was impossible to ignore. Lancaster’s father reportedly disliked the relationship from the beginning and her brother Oliver feared Stewart would drag her into a destructive celebrity lifestyle filled with addiction and scandal.
Ironically, Oliver eventually changed his opinion so dramatically that he later accepted a job working for Stewart himself. In 2005, Stewart and Lancaster welcomed their first child together, a son named Alister. Then, 2 years later, Stewart surprised many people by walking down the aisle for a third time.
The wedding took place in Portofino, Italy and not long afterward, the couple welcomed another son, Aiden. By this stage, Stewart was already the father of eight children, but for the first time in decades, he genuinely seemed ready to embrace family life in a more stable and committed way. Then, just as things appeared settled, a forgotten chapter from his past suddenly came crashing back into view.
In 2007, Stewart was inside a Los Angeles recording studio with his band when the receptionist called upstairs with an unexpected message. A young woman was downstairs claiming to be his daughter. At first, Stewart assumed it had to be some kind of scam. Wanting to avoid embarrassment, he sent bandmate Jim Cregan downstairs to investigate before agreeing to meet her himself.
The moment Cregan saw the woman, his doubts vanished instantly. She looked exactly like Rod Stewart. The young woman introduced herself as Sarah Streeter. As Stewart pieced the story together, he realized she was the daughter he had fathered decades earlier with Susannah Boffey, the same relationship that had inspired “Maggie May”.
Sarah’s life had not been easy. She struggled for years with addiction and emotional turmoil before eventually learning the truth about her biological father from her adoptive parents. The revelation was surreal. ; ; Stewart had been famous for so long that his image had literally hung on her bedroom wall while she was growing up.
After the death of her adoptive mother, Sarah finally decided to reach out to him. The relationship between father and daughter was awkward at first, shaped by years of distance and unanswered questions. But over time, things slowly improved, and Sarah eventually became accepted as part of the wider Stewart family.
Even as Stewart settled into family life later in life, stories from his wild past continued following him everywhere. One of the strangest resurfaced publicly during a 2012 appearance on Katie Couric’s talk show. Couric confronted Stewart about a decades-old urban legend claiming he once ended up in a hospital emergency room after an outrageous night partying with sailors.
The rumor had followed Stewart for years and become one of rock music’s most bizarre gossip stories. Clearly uncomfortable, Stewart strongly denied it and insisted he was completely heterosexual. He then explained that he believed the story originated with a former publicist he had fired years earlier.
According to Stewart, the publicist spread the rumor out of revenge after being dismissed from his job. The problem was that the story could never really be verified because, according to Stewart, the man had since passed away. Still, while Stewart appeared embarrassed by that particular rumor, he often seemed strangely proud of many other outrageous stories surrounding his love life.
In his autobiography, he openly admitted to cheating on one centerfold model with another. He even confessed that during the period he was involved with Kelly Emberg, he was simultaneously being unfaithful to her as well. For many people, it raised the same question over and over again. What exactly made Rod Stewart so irresistible to women? Ironically, Stewart himself claimed his secret was incredibly simple.
For decades, he relied on the exact same pickup line whenever approaching women. Somehow, despite sounding ridiculous on paper, it apparently worked for him over and over again. Of course, it probably helped that the man delivering the line happened to be a millionaire rock icon with one of the most recognizable voices in music history.
After three marriages, eight children, countless relationships, and decades spent living one of rock music’s wildest lifestyles, Stewart eventually reflected on what he had learned about love and marriage. And true to form, even his conclusion came wrapped in humor and cynicism. Rather than ever getting married again, Stewart joked that if he found himself single in the future, he would simply find a woman he did not like and buy her a house instead.
Rod Stewart names the one woman he shouldn’t have let go. Even though Rod Stewart is happily married to his current wife, Penny Lancaster, ; ; the rock legend has spent more time lately looking back on the relationships that shaped his life. During a recent interview with The Times, Stewart reflected on the night he first met Penny at a bar shortly after the collapse of his marriage to his second wife, Rachel Hunter.
Before Rachel, Stewart had been married to Alana Stewart from 1979 to 1984. Making his love life one long winding chapter of highs, heartbreak, and reinvention. As Stewart remembered it, Penny walked up asking for an autograph, but the conversation quickly turned into something far more memorable. Completely captivated by her confidence and beauty, he later described her as an incredible dancer who immediately stood out from everyone else in the room.
Still, behind that charming story was a painful period Stewart rarely hides from. He admitted that while he was fortunate enough to eventually find love again, the end of his marriage to Rachel Hunter hit him incredibly hard. There was a 6-month stretch between the breakup and meeting Penny. Partly because Stewart’s bass player refused to hand over Penny’s phone number.
According to Stewart, his friend believed he needed time to enjoy single life instead of rushing headfirst into another serious relationship. Stewart later admitted his bandmate was probably right. Joking that he made the most of those months. But underneath the humor was genuine heartbreak. Stewart openly confessed that Rachel leaving him tore him apart emotionally.
Looking back, he believed their age difference played a major role in the relationship falling apart. Rachel was only 21 years old when she married the 45-year-old rock star. A gap that immediately concerned Stewart’s family from the very beginning. Even his own sister reportedly warned him that the marriage might never work long-term.
And in many ways, Rachel Hunter later agreed with that assessment herself. Speaking with the New Zealand Herald years later, she admitted that her youth heavily influenced the breakup. She explained that life simply unfolded the way it did. And while hurting Stewart was painful for her, she acknowledged that both of them eventually came to understand why the marriage could not survive.
