I have made my wife be a stay-at-home mum... because my Rolling Stone parents were such hell-raisers

By Amy Oliver

PUBLISHED: 18:12 EST, 15 March 2014 | UPDATED: 12:33 EST, 16 March 2014


Around his wrist, Jamie Wood, son of Rolling Stones wildman Ronnie Wood, wears a bangle engraved with the words Like Father, Like Son.

It might appear to be a touching tribute to the legendary rocker who raised him. But it was a gift from one of his own children and it serves as a  daily reminder that as a father, Jamie is all the things Ronnie was not.

Today he speaks frankly about his determination to give his offspring the discipline that was missing from his own unconventional upbringing. That included insisting that his wife Jodie put her career on hold so she could raise their sons Kobe, now five, and Leo, eight.

Close: Jamie, Jodie and his two oldest sons, Charlie and Leo, in 2008

Close: Jamie, Jodie and his two oldest sons, Charlie and Leo, in 2008

‘My wife used to be a model and an actress, but I made her stop,’ he says. ‘She got pregnant and I said, “You’re not going  off on to a movie set for three months, it’s not happening.”

‘If you’re going to have a family, you have a family. You dedicate yourself to your children. You can’t have a baby and then leave it at home on its own.’

It is a far cry from his own unsettled childhood. Ronnie moved Jamie around homes  in Los Angeles, London, New York and Ibiza, sometimes leaving him crying in the  arms of his nanny as he departed on tour. Later he was sent to boarding school, but Ronnie chose not to push  him academically.

However Jamie, now a successful art gallery owner, is keen not to condemn the parenting he received. ‘Look, Mum and Dad were both hellraisers, but it was that sort of time, it was rock ’n’ roll,’ he says. ‘They partied hard, but as a kid it felt normal to me.’

 

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Growing up, Jamie met everyone from actor Michael J. Fox to the late John Belushi, who impressed him by doing a backflip. One morning, he found Superman actor Christopher Reeve lying semi-comatose on his father’s sofa.

He grins as he recalls: ‘When I went to bed I’d hear Dad’s loud music when I was trying to sleep. I’d ask him to turn it down and he’d say, “F*** off!”

‘There are advantages and disadvantages to a rock ’n’ roll lifestyle. The advantages are that your parents are there a  lot and give you plenty of love. The disadvantages are that they don’t wake up until you get back from school.’

Jamie eventually went off the rails, and spent his youth sampling a cornucopia of drugs including heroin – and now wishes he’d had more discipline and guidance. ‘Dad didn’t push us,’ he says. ‘We were sent to school and that was about it.

Unusual upbringing: Ronnie with Jamie, right, and brother Tyrone, in the mid-1980s

Unusual upbringing: Ronnie with Jamie, right, and brother Tyrone, in the mid-1980s

‘But you have to get behind your children and push them to their strengths. I’m going to push mine as much as I can and give them the tools to survive.’

As well as Kobe and Leo, Jamie has another boy from a previous relationship: Charlie, 14. ‘My life would be pretty empty without my children,’ he says.

Jamie’s mother is Jo Wood; his biological dad her first husband, clothing boss Peter Greene. He was just a toddler when Jo, then a model, met Ronnie at party in 1977, and from then on was raised by the rocker as his own.

He spent his early years in America, but moved to London when he was 12. A year later, he was enrolled in a Somerset boarding school but was expelled for selling cannabis to classmates. By the time he was 16 he had been to 15 schools.

Instead of doing his A-levels he went to Ibiza where ecstasy was abundant. Eventually, he had the dubious honour of being cleaned up by Keith Richards who suggested Jo should ‘put him on a ship and send him out to sea’. Instead, he was set to work on tour with the Stones.

JAMIE was speaking to The Mail on Sunday ahead of Thursday’s launch of pop-up art gallery Scream Editions in London, sister to his Soho gallery Scream. However, neither exhibits pieces from Ronnie himself, whose paintings of the Stones command six figure sums.

The father-son relationship foundered in 2008 when Ronnie left Jo after 26 years of marriage for a Russian cocktail waitress Ekaterina Ivanova, who was young enough to be  his granddaughter.

‘The split was a difficult time for all of us,’ Jamie says candidly. ‘Dad had left the family. He wasn’t looking after himself; he was drunk and mad. It was a mid-life crisis 20 years too late.’

But he and Ronnie are now as close as ever and he approves of his father’s third wife, theatre producer Sally Humphreys, whom he wed in 2012. ‘Dad’s landed on his feet with a pretty good, sensible woman,’ Jamie says. ‘Mum’s fine with Sally. We can all sit down to dinner now.’

Jamie also reveals that his father, who has battled drug and alcohol addictions for most of his life in the showbiz spotlight, has been sober for the past 18 months.

‘It’s been refreshing to talk to him when he’s sober and it’s great that he has stayed so strong,’ Jamie says. ‘I mean, he’s a rock star who doesn’t drink – it’s very hard. He’s not the hell-raiser any more. He’s turned into a normal dude; he stays in, watches CSI and drinks coffee.’

As for him and Jodie, they are hoping to expand their family. ‘We’re hoping for a girl but it’s not working out,’ Jamie sighs. ‘We’re trying lots of different methods and my wife’s got me doing all this crazy stuff. I’m eating weird food and, the other day, she tried to dip my nether regions in ice.’

That’s the kind of trick Ronnie would have got up to as a party piece, not as a way of trying to conceive a daughter.

But then every generation rebels against the one before. For the child of a rock god, being normal is the greatest act of rebellion there is.

 

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Very nice. God bless him.

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so Ronnie wood is not even you father but you will happily trade off his name for free advertising for your art gallery whilst dictating terms to you wife. you obviously have no talent so why don't you stay at home and let your wife work???

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MADE ?? MADE ?? Helloooooo - what century are we living in ?????

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Nice to see male patriarchy is alive and well even in the UK. Sad. :-(

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In all fairness I don't see his wife taking on a full time job! Otherwise she would! In this time you can command a lot but when your partner doesn't want it... She would be gone in a second! Good too him for being able to live a life off luxury and keeping your wife happy at home! So go and thank your daddie for becoming one of the biggest rock stars and giving you a golden spoon!

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I didn't realise he owned the Scream Gallery on Eastcastle St but it does explain the set of clueless try hards that obviously know knack all about art, that are gathered outside smoking most evenings.

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Piffle

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Glad to see there are real men and real women left in the world.

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Just because your childhood took a battering you can't dictate to others what they can or can't do. Staying at home all day with the kids is not that easy as it seems.

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Control freak!!

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