Is this Mick Jagger's messiest ever love tangle? The ballerina he hardly sees who's just had his EIGHTH baby and the 5ft 11in model who's driven her wild with jealousy

  • Rock star Mick Jagger, has just welcomed his eighth child at the age of 73
  • Had baby with American ballerina Melanie Hamrick, 30 - 43 years his junior
  • Jagger 'treading on eggshells' after reports linking him to 5ft 11in Russian model

Becoming a father can be a tiring business, and Mick Jagger can surely be excused for feeling more weary than most

Becoming a father can be a tiring business, and Mick Jagger, who has just welcomed his eighth child at the age of 73, can surely be excused for feeling more weary than most.

However, the reason for his stresses are not — entirely — down to the newborn son delivered in New York on Thursday by dainty American ballerina Melanie Hamrick, 30 — who is a mere 43 years his junior.

Rather it is the delicate question of the status and future of their relationship which seems to be most exercising the pair of them.

For theirs is no ordinary ‘love story’ and it does not follow the usual template of romance. They don’t live together, and have no plans to. 

Jagger is with her in New York now after flying from London to be at the birth. She has a £5 million townhouse he bought for her, he has a brownstone elsewhere in the city.

He will return to the UK for Christmas with a selection of his other children, but has pledged to return to visit her and the baby early in the New Year.

A sympathetic friend was quoted yesterday as saying: ‘Mick is keen to spend as much time with his son as possible. Everything is on hold as he bonds with his son. He wants to cherish those special moments and has told those around him to give him space.’

Surely, however, Ms Hamrick is enough of a realist to acknowledge that, given all of this separation, there will be no stopping Jagger’s lifelong need for female company, and plenty of it?

Mick's chicks: Masha Rudenko (left) and Melanie Hamrick (right), the mother of his new baby 

After all, the priapic Rolling Stones frontman is estimated — conservatively — to have had 4,000 lovers and counting. Womanising is his chief hobby, and he is particularly adept at picking up female company when he is on the road with the band, which is currently in an active period with a new album at No 1 and a European tour being discussed for next summer.

And this is what seems to be giving her pause. For those in Hamrick’s circle indicate that there was a serious problem two months ago when reports linking Jagger to a blonde 5ft 11in Russian model surfaced — and the result is that he is now ‘treading on eggshells’ around her.

Hamrick is said to have ‘hit the roof’ over reports that he brought Masha Rudenko to see him perform at Coachella Desert Trip festival in October. All the more so because gorgeous Masha, 27, was linked to him last summer with reports that he had been wining and dining the model, flying her around the world first class and that she believed she was his girlfriend.

It was even suggested that she had told friends that Jagger was ‘crazy’ about her. You can readily see why — a slender size 2 with a sweep of blonde hair, dazzling smile and legs that go on forever, she rather recalls Jerry Hall in her Seventies heyday.

For Masha to surface wearing a Rolling Stones T-shirt on Instagram and coyly talk about how much she had loved watching the band at Desert Trip (she also posted a picture of herself at the very front of the stage) was enough to apparently send Melanie into a fury.

A source said: ‘Melanie hit the roof. She went berserk. She will not stand for being humiliated and Mick was very anxious to shut that story down and keep her happy.

‘He is doing his best to keep her and her family happy and it’s not easy. Her mother doesn’t seem to approve of the romance, which is difficult all round.’

Mick and Melanie in 2014: The newborn son was delivered in New York on Thursday by dainty American ballerina Melanie Hamrick, 30 — who is a mere 43 years his junior

Ironically, then, even though the old devil is not married, he is finding that he has to be more discreet about his dalliances than ever before.

The original arrangement between Mick and Melanie appears to have been that she was his girl in New York on a slightly sporadic basis.

They first met at an event in Japan in February, 2014, three weeks before Mick’s long-term girlfriend L’Wren Scott committed suicide. They were then pictured canoodling on the balcony of a hotel in Zurich, 11 weeks after L’Wren died.

His aides have insisted that there was no romance until after L’Wren’s tragic death; some sources, however, contend that L’Wren was ‘well aware’ that Melanie existed before she took her life amid reports of debt in her fashion business and depression.

Whatever the truth may be, great care has been taken to try to honour the memory of his ten years with L’Wren, with the singer endowing a grant in her name at St Martin’s College in London.

He also went out of his way to build bridges with her family in the aftermath of her death.

L’Wren’s brother Randall Bambrough told the New York Daily News paper: ‘I am happy for Mick. I have observed Mick to be a loving father, and family is very important to him.

He added: ‘L’Wren would want him to have continued overall happiness in his life going forward, especially regarding his family. He cares very deeply about all of his children. This child will be well taken care of just like all the rest of his children.’

Jagger is with her in New York now after flying from London to be at the birth. She has a £5 million townhouse he bought for her, he has a brownstone elsewhere in the city

Melanie Hamrick performing in the American Ballet Theatre's production of Swan Lake in London

Melanie and Jagger have been seen together only once since that initial picture, leaving the Carlyle Hotel in New York as a couple last year.

They have, of course, seen each other — their baby was conceived when she flew out to see the Rolling Stones play in Bogota in the spring.

Before that she had spent some time with him in Mustique, and even met some of his children there in January during the New Year break which Mick always spends on the island. Significantly, though, she wasn’t with him either last Christmas or the one before that.

And before she fell pregnant, she was not yet quite accorded ‘girlfriend’ status. ‘It is an arrangement rather than a formal relationship,’ I was told, falling somewhere between a love affair and the stability of a boyfriend-girlfriend romance.

Jagger sources indicate that, while Mick would introduce classy, cool L’Wren as his ‘girl’ to everyone, this was never the case with Melanie.

A friend said: ‘Before the baby Melanie was someone he liked seeing. He loved the ballet aspect, she has the most amazing body, and he found her sexy and good company.’

Aghast at the pregnancy — Jagger leaves matters of contraception to his female friends — he apparently didn’t reply to many messages of congratulations because he was rather struggling with the concept of becoming a father yet again.

One can see why: mathematically it is mind-boggling. Hamrick is so much his junior and their baby is younger than Mick’s great-granddaughter.

A relentless womaniser, Jagger had his first child when he was 27 and has fathered eight babies by five mothers.

A relentless womaniser, Jagger had his first child when he was 27 and has fathered eight babies by five mothers.

Nobody needs reminding that accidentally getting Brazilian lingerie model Luciana Morad pregnant 17 years ago cost Mick his marriage to Jerry Hall and a £15 million settlement. (Jerry said pithily of the marriage: ‘We got on great. Except he slept with lots of other people, which was horrible. Otherwise, he was perfect.’)

Tellingly, there was never any talk that he and Melanie might try and make a go of the romance in a conventional way.

Instead, arrangements were made to support her and the baby. Like son Lucas, 17, by Morad, the new baby will be financially looked after until he finishes education.

Luci reportedly gets £10,000 a month to keep Lucas in style, and Mick visits every two or three months to spend time with the boy. She calls him a ‘fine father’ in interviews.

We can expect something similar to come into play here.

Jagger flew to be with Melanie when she went into labour, arriving at the hospital in New York just in time.

He is said to be ‘overjoyed’ at the safe arrival of the baby, and his many children say that he is a loving father to them. Jagger released a statement which said: ‘They are both delighted. Mick was at the hospital for the arrival.’

This autumn a house was bought in New York for Melanie and the baby and it is said his legal team have tied her to a non-disclosure agreement, or are in the process of doing so.

Mick is said to be keen to avoid the ‘Luciana situation’ — she declined to keep her mouth shut and has been periodically popping up ever since, which he finds embarrassing.

Hamrick’s widowed mother Anne, though, is not bound by any such agreement and is understood to rather disapprove of the liaison. Jagger is very keen for everyone to keep their own counsel.

So who is Melanie Hamrick? Younger than most of Mick’s children, she is an accomplished dancer who never quite made the grade to become a prima ballerina, despite all her early promise.

She has said that she was ‘obsessed’ with ballet as a child growing up in Williamsburg, Virginia. Aged 11 she won a place to study at the Kirov Academy, an acclaimed ballet school in Washington DC.

It’s organised on a strict Russian-inspired regime, and staff scrutinise every detail of the dancers’ lives — from what they eat, to how long they sleep and every aspect of their deportment. They are even expected to curtsey to teachers.

She joined the American Ballet Theatre’s studio company in 2003, becoming part of the corps de ballet within a year.

Mick Jagger, Georgia May Jagger, Gabriel Jagger and James Jagger pictured in 2014

A romance with dancer Jose Carreno followed from 2007 — he was a principal dancer at the same company and 18 years her senior. They got engaged in 2011 and were planning a wedding in Mexico.

But in 2014 Carreno moved to California to become artistic director of Ballet San Jose and appear in a TV contest called Dancing With The Stars. The relationship ended.

In April, just before she fell pregnant, she took the curious decision to give a magazine interview about how she maintains her dancer’s body with diet and exercise.

The point of her breaking cover seems clear — she confirms she and Jagger were an item, despite previous reports they had broken up. (‘I’d rather not comment on my personal life’ she said when pressed about news reports and left it at that.)

Was this a warning to another woman? Or was she just tiring of her semi-official status as Mick’s chick?

Whatever reason for her wanting to assert her status as official girlfriend, it was soon superseded by her falling pregnant.

A Jagger source says: ‘Mick will absolutely love this child just as he adores Lucas. And he’s doing his best to make Melanie happy.’

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