Ronnie Wood is now free to marry as many teenage Russian cocktail waitresses as he likes! The Rolling Stone has been divorced by his long-suffering wife Jo, after running off with Ekaterina Ivanova last summer.
Since then, Jo’s developed a new lease of life, becoming a regular on the London party scene and appearing on “Strictly Come Dancing”. Ronnie, meanwhile, has had drunken public rows with his new girlfriend and looked like an old man out walking with his granddaughter. Shiver. [Photo: WENN]
Ekaterina Ivanova is tired of people thinking she’s a gold-digging homewrecker. Yes, she’s been having an affair with Ron Wood, a married Rolling Stone more than three times her age. But she’s not in it for the money, as she explained to the Daily Mail.
I’d have to be a really sick and twisted person to go through what I went through for money – money that I obviously haven’t got. It’s not like I’m walking around in Louis Vuitton. I’m not materialistic. I find it quite fun not to have money.
You’d think dating a sextegenarian worth $200 million would get in the way of that fun, but that’s just not the case. “He makes me happy; he’s funny. We’re like Lego that just clicks together.” So why did he have to check into rehab a week after they hooked up? Don’t ask Ivanova—she didn’t even realize he was an alcoholic! “[He] wasn’t violent or shouty,” says the former cocktail waitress. That’s right, Ekaterina. 61-year-old men who drink two bottles of vodka a day aren’t alcoholics unless they yell. Sounds like you’re just the gal to keep him on the straight and narrow.
Nowadays the Rolling Stones look like something out of The Nightmare Before Christmas. In 1967, though, the “Gimme Shelter” rockers were Public Enemy No. One, thanks to their affinity for sex and drugs. It was only a matter of time before the cops came knocking. Following a tip-off from the tabloid press, 20 police officers raided Keith Richards‘ Redlands estate in England. Richards and Mick Jagger were charged with possession of LSD and other narcotics, but the raid became legendary for a candy bar involving singer Marianne Faithful.
Cops on the scene swore they interrupted Jagger eating a Mars Bar wedged into his girlfriend’s holiest of holies before hauling him away for possession. “A cop’s idea of what people do on acid!” sniffed Faithfull, denying all in her autobiography. Even so, the story remains one of rock’s most celebrated myths. — Charles Bottomley
Having the Hell’s Angels handle your security is like having Michael Jackson watch your kids – you just know it’ll end badly. In support of their prophetically named 1969 album Let It Bleed, the Rolling Stones snorted and screwed their way across Woodstock era-America before deciding to play a free concert in California. Little did they know the show would climax with the death of a young fan.
Without a venue, the band settled on Altamont, an abandoned speedway, and 400,000 fans showed in just two days. The Angels, allegedly hired for $500 worth of beer, punched Jefferson Airplane lead singer Marty Balin in the face, lobbed beer cans at people’s heads (concussion time!), and used lead-filled pool cues to shove and prod the crowd. But this abuse wasn’t the worst of it.
By happenstance, the tumultuous scene was captured by filmmakers the Maysles Brothers, who were shooting a concert documentary (Gimme Shelter). In the chilling footage (initially savaged by critics as a glorified snuff film), Jagger implores the Angels to treat the audience with more respect, then distractedly mumbles through “Under My Thumb” as the Angels murder Meredith Hunter, an 18-year-old man who had brandished a gun. Goodbye peace and love.
