Rod Stewart celebrates his 80th birthday: the eternal rock’n’roll dandy

With global hits like “Sailing”, “Baby Jane” and “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” Rod Stewart (80) became one of the most successful musicians of all time. However, he also owes his legendary status to his image as an excessive playboy and dazzling sex symbol, which he carefully maintains to this day.

Even at a young age, Rod Stewart showed a pronounced tendency towards self-promotion, with his hair playing a central role from the start. , he put a lot of effort into getting it into the desired form as a teenager. “We couldn’t afford a hairdryer back then,” he told the paper. “So I put my mat on the table, put a towel on it and then dried it with the iron. I always had to be very careful not to singe my beautiful hair. Crass, I know. But when you’re poor, you have to be creative .”

He also attached great importance to his outfits throughout his life and always radically adapted them to the latest fashion trends in the first years of his dazzling career. Already in the blues rock era before his solo career, when he was on stage alongside the later Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood (77) as the frontman of the “Faces”, he was doing the glam rock music that was popular at the time. Take your style confidently to the extreme with a backcombed mullet, nipple-free ruffled blouses and skin-tight spandex trousers with tiger print.

After the trend finally faded, he adapted to the cooler looks of the 1980s with brightly colored silk suits worn with a bare chest and ties dangling loosely around his neck, but saved his now iconic tousled mullet into the new era. During this time of his greatest successes, he finally developed the unmistakable Rod Stewart look for which he is still notorious today: the look of a busy rock star playboy who has apparently just emerged from a wild champagne party in his hotel room in a great mood and is now looking for new adventures.

It was clear to the British entertainer from the start that the rock’n’roll business is not just about the music, but also very much about the packaging and the public image. In order to underline his reputation as a sex symbol, in his wildest years he liked to ostentatiously surround himself with well-known models such as Britt Ekland (82), Kelly Emberg (65) and Rachel Hunter (55).

Ekland, who rose to prominence as a Bond girl (“The Man with the Golden Gun”) and with whom Stewart was in a relationship between 1975 and 1977, promptly sued him for financial compensation of 12.5 million after their relationship ended Dollar because she made a decisive contribution to his career. Even though he didn’t have to pay the millions in the end, the glamor ne’er-do-well later argued in “Rolling Stone”: “I deserved it. I went through a phase in which I lost all contact with rock & roll. I was completely lost fixed my self-image.”

The bare numbers prove that Rod Stewart’s notorious playboy image is not just a facade. The legendary superstar is the father of a total of eight children, which he has with five different women. The two youngest pupils, Alastair Wallace (19) and Aiden Patrick (13), come from his current relationship with ex-model Penny Lancaster (53), to whom he has been married since 2007.

Other myths surround the wild partying and alcohol excesses that Stewart was notorious for in earlier times. His band Faces regularly caused a stir in the 1970s with headlines about wild groupie parties and dismantled hotel rooms. As he described to the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, alcohol was flowing freely backstage and not just backstage. “Back in the day, on tour, we had a bar on stage with a barman mixing drinks and young women in school uniforms serving us,” he recalled there. And added: “Something like that would be unthinkable today.”

Even in his old age, the man with the distinctive grating voice is by no means averse to high-proof drinks, even if he takes it a little easier on his tours, which continue to sell out. In 2023, he even launched his own whiskey brand “Wolfie’s” in cooperation with a Scottish distillery.

It says: “Wolfie’s is a bold, incorrigible spirit that captures the essence of rock ‘n’ roll in every drop. It balances gentle smoothness with a rebellious response, perfect for those looking for something authentic and full of character and yearn for the extraordinary.”

On his 80th birthday, Rod Stewart impressively proves that he still knows what a decent rock star party should look like. , he started the festivities on his special day last Sunday by setting off on a ten-day trip through the Caribbean with numerous family members, including his eight children, on a three-story, $150 million super yacht.

In the future, the eternal dandy intends to continue to enjoy his legendary glamorous life to the fullest. Ahead of his 80th birthday, he told The Sun: “At some point we all have to go, so we’re all in the same boat. I’m going to enjoy the last few years as much as I can. I say a few – probably 15 more.” He added with practiced nonchalance: “I can do it easily, buddy, easily.”