Jo Wood tells of surprise outburst from date about exactly what he wanted
You Can’t Always Get What You Want – and that’s certainly been the case for Jo Wood. Some 14 years have passed since the former model split from her Rolling Stones ex, Ronnie – but Jo is still looking for her soulmate.
And while she has dated a string of men in recent years, the entrepreneur admits that she lets her guard down too easily and often attracts the wrong kind of guy.
In a candid chat about her love life, Jo confesses that she would rather stay single than be taken advantage of again. The 68-year-old recalls a particularly telling encounter she had with one boyfriend just before lockdown. “He stood in the kitchen and he’s having an argument with me. I hate arguing and he’s standing there and I say, ‘What do you want from me?’
“And he said, ‘I want half of this [house]’. I said, ‘The only people who are getting half of this are my kids!’ and he said, ‘I can’t believe you’re putting your kids before me’.
“None of them seem to be any good that I go out with, so I don’t want to go there again.
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“I like being my own woman. I suppose you get selfish as you get older.”
Jo with Ronnie in 1979 (Getty Images)Life changed completely for Jo in 2019 when she sold her North London home for £4million and moved into a rural off-grid property with its own solar power and generator. She nearly had a famous buyer for her bolthole in the capital – singer Harry Styles. He offered to buy the house but it was not for sale at the time. Jo says: “I’ve hung out with Harry…he’s just great. He wanted to buy my house in Camden. I’d been out at the Arts Club and he was there.
“A week later I came out of my house and I was like, ‘Harry, what are you doing outside my house?’ He said, ‘I’m looking at a house down there. Is yours for sale?’ I said, ‘No, it’s not!’
She adds: “I should have sold it to him… wouldn’t that have been great? Double the price.”
Now the former city girl, who flew around the world in private jets sipping cocktails, thrives in her own company and cannot imagine sharing her Northamptonshire farmhouse with anyone else. Her move to the country came 10 years after guitarist Ronnie, now 76, ran off with an 18-year-old Russian cocktail waitress, ending their 24-year marriage.
Jo was just 22, divorced and mum to Jamie, now 49, when she met Ronnie, dad to Jesse, 47, in 1977. They wed in 1985 and had two more children – Leah, 45, and Tyrone, 40. Ronnie has since married the theatre producer Sally Humphreys, 45. Their twins Alice and Gracie are seven.
But far from being jealous of her ex, Jo is good friends with the couple, despite Ronnie’s infidelity. This is largely thanks to Sally. Jo says: “I made a big effort every year to invite him for Christmas Eve drinks. He’d always said no but when he met Sally, I said to her, ‘Do you want to come?’ and she said yes.
“I know my kids love it when they see us together. It’s important for the family,” says Jo, who split from 44-year-old chef Jameson Stocks in August.
Jo with Mirror reporters Nicola and Laura (Adam Gerrard / Sunday Mirror)Jo still has a lot of love for Ronnie but is more reserved about her affection for Stones frontman Mick Jagger, whose hot -and-cold personality she is still trying to suss out after more than four decades of friendship. She says: “They’re all good guys, but Mick is the hardest one to get through to because he’s different characters. You can sit next to him at dinner and he’ll be absolutely wonderful and the next day you’ll see him and he’ll totally blank you.
“You think, ‘What have I done?!’ But that’s just him.
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“I absolutely adore Keith [Richards]. He’s been a good friend to me.”
During her 32 years with Ronnie, Jo toured the world with the Stones. She even credits her love of organic food as the reason why Keith, 79, is still alive. She has only eaten organic after almost dying from a perforated appendix 30 years ago and reckons her healthy lifestyle choices rubbed off on the rockers.
Jo, who has just returned from having an ayurvedic cleanse in India, has even launched her own Jo Woodies longevity pills with her son Ty, which feature maca (good for sex drive, she says) lion’s mane, turkey tail and reishi mushrooms.
“I am obsessed with organic food,” Jo says. “When I grew my first crop of organic potatoes, I didn’t want to leave them. We were going on tour to Paris so I packed them in a suitcase and took them with me.
“I got the cook backstage to cook them all up for me and Keith came up to me and said, ‘The trouble with you, darling, is you’re addicted to organic food’.
I looked at him and thought, ‘Are you mad?!’ Patti [Hansen], Keith’s wife, is now obsessed. I think that’s why he’s still alive!” Jo has many stories from her time with the Stones and shares an untold one about artist Ronnie being drunk in the delivery suite as she was about to give birth.
...and on Dancing with the Stars in 2009 (BBC)She laughs: “Ronnie was like a maniac. He was drinking and he’d been up all night. Jack Daniels.
“He was drawing me and taking Polaroids between my legs. I’ve still got these Polaroids of the baby’s head coming out. I’ve got some lovely drawings he did of me pushing out the baby.”
Jo has 10 grandchildren who call her “gangster granny” since they asked her, “Gran, have you done any drugs?” and she replied, “Of course!” She admits she could only balance being a rock star’s wife and mum-of-three in Los Angeles thanks to a nanny called Jay.
She says: “We were partying a lot then. We’d stay up all night and have a house full of musicians, roadies sleeping on the floor. It was insane.”
Saturday nights are a bit different for Jo now, though. She loves watching Strictly after appearing on the show with Brendan Cole in 2009, and credits it with giving her a much-needed ego boost. “I’d just split up with Ronnie,” she explains. “I’d lived so much on his coattails… I was on my way back to being Jo again.
“Afterwards, I thought if I can do that, I can do anything. I was so proud of myself.”
Jo, who rates this year’s contestants Angela Rippon and Layton Williams, added: “It was very good for me… it’s good for anybody to do it.”
Jo’s wallpaper collection, Jo Jo and Trixie, is available now
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