Jerry Hall — described as “sublime” in this month’s issue of fashion authority Vogue — is just days away from turning 70, and she is marking the milestone with an opulent celebration in the grounds of her splendid, art-filled manor near Henley.
A marquee is being set up in the garden, complete with a sprung dance floor, and the party will bring together many of the supermodel’s greatest pleasures: her children, her grandchildren, her cigarettes and her cherished rosé wine.
Yet it is the guest list that perhaps says the most about how Jerry intends to step into her eighth decade.
Alongside close friends including make-up mogul Charlotte Tilbury and artist Tracey Emin, she has also invited her most celebrated former partner, Mick Jagger, who remains among her dearest companions. I’m told Mick, his fiancée Melanie Hamrick and their nine-year-old son Deveraux are frequent guests at Jerry’s for Sunday lunch, and all three are expected to be there for her July 4 birthday party, two days after she officially reaches the landmark age.
Their bond is said to be so warm that Jerry was reportedly among the first to hear of Mick and Melanie’s engagement several years ago. She is also understood to have given ballet dancer Melanie some guidance on what it means to be Mick’s partner — a position Jerry has compared to being the wife of an ambassador. And, in a further sign of how deeply she values family ties, Jerry has even included on the invitation list the woman once branded a “marriage wrecker”.
Brazilian model-turned-presenter Luciana Morad, along with Lucas, now 27, the son she shares with Mick, are also expected at the gathering — almost 30 years after the affair that led to the collapse of Jerry’s 22-year relationship with the Rolling Stones frontman.
Jerry Hall’s most famous ex, Mick Jagger, has been invited to her birthday bash. He, along with his fiancee and their nine-year-old son are said to be regulars at Jerry’s home for Sunday lunch
Brazilian model-turned-presenter Luciana Morad and Lucas, now 27, the son she had with Mick, are also on the guest list
The wider family is central to Jerry’s happiness, writes Alison Boshoff. (Pictured with Mick, their daughter Georgia, their son James and their grandchild)
Indeed, so central is it to Jerry’s happiness that the wider family – and its younger members – enjoy her birthday that she’s staging the party between the civilised hours of 2 and 6pm and making sure everyone is well fed with a late lunch. Nobody wants fractious children becoming hangry. Entertainment will be provided by an Elvis impersonator serenading the birthday girl – something Jerry decreed such fun when she turned 67 that she decided to repeat the treat for the new grandchildren who would have missed it.
Significantly, there will be no new beau on her arm. ‘I sometimes see people and think, “he’s cute” but I kind of can’t be bothered,’ she said in a recent interview. ‘I like men’s company but I don’t actually think I’ll ever want to live with one of them again.’
One ex who will definitely not be putting in an appearance at the festivities will be her second ex-husband, billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Nor any of his children or grandchildren.
In what some might see as a delicious irony, the majestic Oxfordshire home where the party will be held was awarded to Jerry as part of the couple’s rumoured $250million bitter divorce settlement.
But make no mistake, Murdoch’s dumping of his fourth wife left Jerry ‘embarrassed and hurt’.
He remains unforgiven and her circle know better than to even utter his name in her presence. The Texan model was famously blindsided when he called time on their six year union in a brutal email. In the summer of 2022 Rupert wrote: ‘Jerry, sadly I’ve decided to call an end to our marriage. We certainly had some good times but I have much to do… my New York lawyer will be contacting yours immediately.’
She was given 30 days to remove her belongings from the vineyard in Bel Air which the couple had made their main home, under the watchful eye of Rupert’s security.
It was a humiliating end to an unlikely match that began in the summer of 2015 and culminated in a wedding a year later attended by the multiple offspring of both parties, including the then teenage daughters of Rupert’s third marriage to Wendi Deng.
The seeds for the union’s demise are thought to have been sown during Covid when Rupert’s children –in particular his son Lachlan, who has since emerged as the heir to his business interests – became concerned about some property deals their father was making.
He put three properties worth $64 million up for sale in New York, in which Jerry had an interest via their pre-nup and wanted to compensate her with an extra stake in his ranch in Montana.
Apparently Lachlan – and possibly others among his adult children –felt this would be a bad idea and the marriage suddenly unravelled over the question of what she might be entitled to in the event of a split. Jerry blamed Rupert’s children for engineering it and told friends that they had been torn apart by his family ‘like Romeo and Juliet’. Albeit the senior version.
In contrast, Jerry’s other ex-husband, Rupert Murdoch, remains unforgiven and it is said her circle do not even utter his name in her presence
After Rupert’s blunt email, the lack of trust between the pair became so acute that Jerry even believed that the CCTV at their home in the Cotswolds might be sending images back to Rupert’s security detail.
It was at this point perhaps that Jagger’s central role in her life crystallised. For it was to him that she turned with her fears. Mick quickly emerged as something of a white knight and got his security people to ‘take care of it’.
Jerry served divorce papers on Rupert as he passed through an airport and within six weeks, in September 2022, the deal had been done. The money from her divorce settlement may even have inadvertently helped solidify her friendship with Mick. Cynics observe that he and Jerry have got on like a house on fire ever since their union was annulled and Jerry stopped asking him for money. She had wanted
£30million after their relationship ended. He successfully argued that their 1990 ceremony in Bali wasn’t a legal wedding and forked out more like £10million.
A friend says: ‘In all honesty she was not that enthusiastic about working during the Jagger years. She would do a job if the money was ridiculously good. She would earn between half a million and a million a year – then very comfortably manage to spend it all.
‘Now I am sure she is really happy that she doesn’t have to work any more. She loves spending money, she loves all the good things in life and she loves rich people. Now she is a rich person herself at last.’
Friends believe Jerry and Rupert signed a non-disparagement agreement as part of their settlement and today Jerry doesn’t comment on her wealthy ex, but described her 60s, during which they were together, as ‘quite tiring’ in a recent magazine interview. ‘Things are calmer now. It’s lovely,’ she added.
One associate tells me: ‘I am sure she had a gagging clause when she split up with Rupert and she cannot talk about any of it.
‘She went away for a few years and really stopped going out. It was embarrassing for her.
‘She was mortified that he dumped her. It didn’t work out how she might have expected. She also didn’t do any work for a few years which might again have been part of the divorce stipulations.’
Today her greatest source of joy is her children: models Lizzy and Georgia, actor James, entrepreneur Gabriel – and her three grandchildren. She also takes great pride and satisfaction in her appearance, as you would expect from a well-preserved model. Her regimen is simple – drink lots of water, get plenty of sleep and do a little gardening.
Her vices are cigarettes – she smokes at least ten a day – and a glass of wine whenever she has company, even at lunch.
Today, Jerry’s greatest pride and joy is her children: models Elizabeth and Georgia (pictured above at London Fashion Week), actor James, and entrepreneur Gabriel
She decries the fashion for Botox and fillers, telling an interviewer: ‘I have loads of wrinkles but I don’t mind. I’m 70, I should have wrinkles. I don’t want to look weird. I don’t want to scare my grandchildren.’
And when she isn’t surrounded by her vast brood, life is still full and sociable. She loves to entertain and says that she is fond of ‘hostessing and homemaking’ – although bemused friends have confided to me that one of her signature meals which she offers guests is Marks & Spencer lasagne, still in its foil tray.
One tells me: ‘She does like to barbecue – she is Texan in that respect. She makes a black-eyed peas dish which is just a salad, tinned beans and some chopped peppers. She certainly won’t be knee deep in pastry before the party. Mostly she gets her staff to do the work.’
In the summer she has her ‘girlfriends’ to stay for a week at a time and she hires an Italian cook because, she says: ‘Otherwise it’s too much work. I can’t hang out with the girls drinking rosé.’
As for work, Jerry is in the enviable position of never having to raise a finger again. One friend told me she only works ‘for fun’. She did, however, take part in Celebrity Traitors which was filmed this spring near Inverness alongside celebrities including Miranda Hart, James Blunt and Maya Jama. Everyone involved in the show, which airs in the autumn, is staying quiet about how that turned out but Jerry was noted for taking numerous cigarette breaks during filming.
An inveterate gossip and shrewd judge of character, she’s said by many in her circle to be rather good at games.
One friend put it to me in starker terms: ‘Jerry is clearly bored. Why else would she bother to work? She must want the attention. It will be interesting to see how she comes across on The Traitors. I remember when she was doing Strictly Come Dancing she was so unmotivated about the competition that she could barely be bothered to show up. But she is good fun and she is all about fun.’
Her life is not, she says, how she once imagined 70 might look. ‘My grandmother, when she was in her 70s, she had grey hair, she was a bit fat – a lovely old granny. I love being a granny, I’m always babysitting, but I don’t really feel 70.’
She added: ‘I’m very lucky I didn’t lose my figure. So I think I should be able to wear anything. It used to be ugly shoes that are comfortable, ugly clothes that are grey and beige and dull. There’s always this thing – you get old and you have to cut your hair short and have this short blue-grey hair. I think it’s a hideous look. I think you shouldn’t do it. We should stand up for our rights to be old and look good! I think we should be allowed to look 70. Why not? Why should we try to look 50?’
In truth the only aspect in which the uber-glamorous Ms Hall resembles the stereotypical image of a grandmother is the way in which she has presided over an extended, blended, harmonious family unit.
As she says: ‘All the kids love each other. All the mothers of the kids love each other. When you have children with someone it’s important to be friendly. Rupert, we were married six and half years and no children, and so, you know.’
Alas, we do.
