Penny Lancaster gives a fascinating insight into her life with rock legend Rod Stewart as she opens up on Christmas plans, a potential career swerve and Rod’s emotional plans
Penny opens up about her husband Rod, Christmas at the Stewarts and Rod’s emotional plans(Image: Dave Benett/Getty Images)
Penny Lancaster is the undisputed queen of reinvention. She began her career as a model in the 90s, later trained as a photographer and, after finding love with rock icon Rod Stewart, embraced her most cherished role yet – motherhood.
She went on to compete in Strictly Come Dancing, has spent a decade guest presenting on Loose Women, and taken on the Celebrity MasterChef kitchen.
Then, after appearing in Channel 4 ’s Famous And Fighting Crime in 2020, Penny qualified as a special constable for the City of London Police. Now, as a new year approaches, the star, 54, is contemplating another professional pivot as she divulges to OK ! her dreams of moving into nature television.
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Penny gives an insight into life with rocker Rod – and what she finds most ‘sexy’ about him(Image: FilmMagic)
Penny is a special constable for the City of London police(Image: Instagram)
“I love the idea of doing my own gardening show, maybe even based out of Durrington,” she tells us, referring to Durrington House, the 18th-century Grade II-listed Hertfordshire estate that she and Rod have shared for 12 years. Spread across over 50 acres, the grounds boast a walled garden, a 48sqm greenhouse, formal topiary, a woodland area and eight beehives.
“I’m learning more about different varieties of plants with [our] head gardener. I love being amongst nature. When things are getting too much, if I spend time in some greenery, by a source of water, listening to birds, in the rain or the sunshine, it feels like an injection of goodness. It’s not an everyday thing but I hug trees a lot. Rod and I both do!”
On Sunday, Penny and Rod will give the nation a rare glimpse behind Durrington’s gates as TV host Anita Rani visits their luxurious home for a brand-new series of BBC One’s My Life At Christmas. Together, the couple reflect on their relationship’s biggest chapters, including first meeting at a Christmas party at London’s Dorchester Hotel in December 1998.
At the time, Penny was studying photography while Rod was a globally famous singer, preparing to separate from ex-wife, New Zealand supermodel Rachel Hunter. The pair began dating nine months later, although Rod – then a dad of six – declared he would never remarry or have more children.
Years on, that resolve melted away. He and Penny wed in Portofino, Italy, in 2007, two years after having their first son Alastair, now 19. Fourteen years ago their second boy, Aiden, followed. Now, long after a bumpy start, navigating the pitfalls of a blended family, they operate as one tight unit.
Penny opens up emotionally about her husband’s thoughts on his final resting place(Image: Harry Durrant/Getty Images)
“To think of all that we’ve gone through, the fact that Rod never imagined he’d be married and have children again, and what a gift it is to have found one another and to have brought this family so close to one another, it brings a lump to my throat,” says Penny, as she ponders the journey they have travelled until now.
When she chats to OK !, she and Rod are preparing to fill Durrington House with family at Christmas. As well as their two sons, Rod’s children Ruby, Liam and three grandchildren, are flying in from LA.
“We’re going ice skating, to the theatre, the races, then there’s local pubs and catching up with Rod’s sister Mary, who’s 97 on Boxing Day,” says Penny, who has arranged all social engagements over the holidays. “Everything’s booked because if it’s done ahead of time, I don’t stress and just let it unfold, like a gift!”
One notable absence, however, will be Rod’s daughter Kimberly, 46, who welcomed her second child in July.
“Kimberly’s not coming. She’s staying home with her mum. It’s a very, very new [baby], so she’s going to stay home,” explains Penny, who flew out right after the birth to support her step-daughter. “I was there for three weeks just after bubba was born, so I got lots of cuddles in!”
Penny smiles as she thinks back to Christmases when her own boys were little. “Rod used to dress up as Father Christmas. We’d get him out the back door all dressed up, stuff a pillow up his front, then direct him to walk slowly. I’d say to the kids, ‘Father Christmas cannot stop at our house if you’re still awake.’ They’d jump in their beds and not get out until the morning!”
Penny is a regular contributor to debates on Loose Women(Image: ITV)
Penny is yet to embark on this year’s present-shopping mission, but says Rod’s gifts always demand an extra injection of inspiration and thoughtfulness – something she executed perfectly a year ago.
“Rod’s got a great respect for veterans and last Christmas, with Rod turning 80 and it being 80 years since the end of the Second World War, I got two metal black silhouette figures of soldiers with metal poppies and placed them in the garden. On Christmas morning, we took the dogs out for a walk in the garden and he saw his gift nestled out in the fields. He always says, ‘How do you always find the right thing?!’”
Describing her husband as “a true romantic”, Penny reveals that the singer is a connoisseur of surprises too. For her 50th birthday, during lockdown, he bought her a narrowboat after she fell in love with canal boats during daily riverside walks.
Recently, though, health issues have stalled her adventures on Bluebell. “I’ve neglected her a bit as last year I tore the meniscus in my knee and I’ve injured my Achilles doing a [police] fitness test,” she says.
“Halfway through I felt a sharp pain in my right Achilles. Instead of stopping, I kept going because of the adrenaline, and now it’s swollen and I’ve got a limp. It’s really frustrating. I’m looking at other ways of volunteering, while I recover, like The Felix Project, a food redistribution charity”.
Penny and Rod share two sons together(Image: Dave Benett/WireImage)
It’s here that the chat darts to another professional possibility – training to be a psychotherapist.
“I know it would help with policing, because we often have a mental health nurse come out when we’re dealing with someone with mental health issue,” she says, noting that penning her autobiography Someone Like Me , which was published in September, was “a little bit” like going through the therapy process.
More imminently, another milestone is on the horizon – Penny’s 55th birthday in March. Are any plans in the making? “No! I’m always thinking about celebrating other people’s [birthdays]. I was so looking forward to my 50th birthday and was going to make it a big one, then it was lockdown, so nothing happened. I got over it, though. It was all right!”
Rod, loitering in the background during our interview, finds himself drawn into the discussion. “Darling, do you want to plan my 55th birthday for me?” she asks and smiles as she relays his response. “He said, ‘Yeah, simple.’ So there you go. He’s a last-minute, impromptu [guy]. He’ll probably go, ‘Pack your bags. I’m taking you somewhere.’ I like planning ahead and he’s last-minute. So it’s a good combo.
After 25 years together, Penny and Rod are undisputedly a united force and with Rod touring Europe until just before Christmas, then again in the New Year, it begs the question: does being frequently apart keep them together?
Penny hit the Strictly dancefloor in 2007(Image: BBC)
“We can all take things for granted as time goes by and [absence] allows you a little bit of space to reflect, to start missing someone again and remember why it’s so important to have snuggles on the couch together or coffee mornings after the drop-off,” agrees Penny. “[It’s about] finding little moments, creating little habits and keeping communication going.`’
Penny also opens up on what she finds most sexy about her other half – his sense of humour. “He doesn’t take himself too seriously. He also takes so much care and pride in his appearance and how he dresses for me. We dress for each other. And he doesn’t have a lazy bone in his body. THAT’s sexy!”
With a 26-year age gap and Rod now approaching 81, mortality is a conversation the couple don’t swerve. In My Life At Christmas , viewers will see Rod pointing out a cream-columned temple in the garden at Durrington where he intends to be laid to rest. The poignant moment offers insight into the practical mindset of a man who Penny insists “has no plans to retire”.
She explains: “You don’t want to talk about the end, but he’s like, ‘Look, it happens to all of us.’ “He always says, ‘I’ve had the best life ever and if it ended tomorrow, I wouldn’t have complaints.’ But his sister’s 97 this year. Why wouldn’t he go to 100?’”
As Rod himself says in the BBC One programme, “Like the Duke of Edinburgh, I like to plan ahead. So this little house is where I’m going to be laid to rest, hopefully. It’s my special place. Penny hates me to talk about it but we all have to die.”
As Penny reveals that their dog Bubbles is buried in the gardens, an idea comes to her. “Maybe we’ll have a family cemetery, then it has to be in the deed of the property,” she smiles. “You buy the property, you have to maintain the cemetery of the Stewarts!”
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