Post by LadyJane on Dec 18th, 2009 at 6:50pm
More of the same with some new twists.
Have The Stones dumped Ronnie Wood over his tawdry romance?
Doesn't she look dewy and radiant? With her blonde hair stylishly backcombed and a pile of Topshop bracelets adorning her slender arms, Ekaterina Ivanova could be someone's daughter celebrating her A-levels - rather than a Russian 'artist' announcing her separation from Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood in this week's Hello! magazine.
Her interview is presented in a very 'Hello!' style. In fact, the reality of the 21-year-old's liaison with alcoholic Wood - who left his wife of 23 years for Ekaterina, then fell off the wagon in spectacular style, only to be observed dragging her along the street in Claygate, Surrey, and threatening her with a lighted cigarette - is sordid and unpleasant.
But Ekaterina, also known as Katya, manages to coat the whole tawdry story in sugar. 'We used to draw together, dance, joke,' she says. 'The whole thing started off like a fairy tale, but then it felt like an evil fairy tale. I'd be trapped there with an evil goblin king.'
In the interview, Katya reveals not very much about life with Ronnie - who is 41 years her senior - and doesn't seem to waste a shred of sympathy on him or feel a twinge of guilt about her part in ending his happy and supportive marriage with Jo, 54.
Their one pastime, says Katya, was watching rubbish satellite TV together - but Ronnie was often 'very drunk', especially towards the end of the romance. He used to have violent tantrums and do silly impressions of her voice.
'In the end I think he needed to be mothered. I think that's the kind of person he needs to be with. I tried and tried but it didn't make me happy,' she says - with the selfishness often displayed by the very young.
That Jo Wood had selflessly been performing precisely that function for Ronnie - and that it had made both of them happy - seems not to occur to her.
And so, after 18 months, she's off. Katya was this week trying to sell her story, once again, for more money.
Her PR adviser, Phil Hall, hints there is plenty which she hasn't been able to tell, for legal reasons - presumably because it touches on allegations of domestic violence. 'She has a lot more to say, if she chooses to,' he tells me.
But, as Katya exits, what of Ronnie? He doesn't, it transpires, have any great dispute with her version of their disastrous romance. But it is a liaison which has had severe consequences for him.
Not only has it cost him his marriage but, as we shall see, Ronnie's dalliance with Katya will probably end up costing him his place in the Rolling Stones.
David Rigg, Ronnie's spokesman, told me: 'We are not going to comment (on Katya's interview). Ronnie will not be making any statements or giving any interviews.'
Rigg confirms Ronnie has no professional engagements of any sort lined up. In fact, his diary seems to be entirely blank.
Considering this, it is perhaps surprising that he has turned down Jo's generous offer to come back to the old marital home for a Christmas lunch.
He could have joined his wife, children and their extended family around the table at their home, Holmwood, a hunting lodge which backs onto Richmond Park in South-West London.
But I'm told that last Sunday, when Jo offered him the chance to come back for lunch, Ronnie asked her: 'What about the other 364 days of the year?' He quite clearly wants his wife back - but the answer to that, at least for now, is no. It seems Ronnie is truly on his own.
The trendy friends he used to have, such as model Kate Moss and party organiser Fran Cutler, stopped seeing him when he was with Katya because she complained they looked down on her. She used to say they made her feel like the Soho waitress she once was.
Ronnie no longer speaks to bandmate Keith Richards either, despite the fact the pair were great drink and drug buddies for years. Friends tell me they fell out some time ago.
Even Mick Jagger is steering clear. I have been told he is looking for a new guitarist for the Rolling Stones and, despite the fact the Stones have always denied there will be a tour in 2010, it is now looking like a distinct possibility.
And if the rumours are true and another money-spinning Stones tour does go ahead, you can bet it will do so without unreliable Ronnie.
'It's one thing to say "Let's have the Stones frightening the grannies, let's all be debauched and wild", but it's just not acceptable to have one seen choking his girlfriend,' said a friend of the band's.
'There are two things you can't be seen to do, which is hit women and get involved with under-age girls. Thanks to Ronnie and Bill Wyman (who seduced and went on to marry 13-year-old Mandy Smith), Mick has had a full house now.'
It's all such a contrast to the calm days when Jo was Ronnie's loyal linchpin.
She used to be on the Stones' payroll as Ronnie's 'dresser' and would come along on every tour, cooking him organic beans on toast and free-range poached eggs on a little Primus stove. You could argue that she was almost as much a member of the band as he was.
Jagger had sided with Jo from the beginning. 'Mick tried to intervene right at the start of the relationship with Katya,' says the friend.
'There was a plan to set up Katya in a flat in Tottenham Court Road, get Ronnie to rehab and then lead him back to Jo.
'Mick has always relied on Jo to be his conduit through to Ronnie - he has relied on her to get Ronnie to work, to keep him well enough to pass a medical for the tour.
'Without Jo, Ronnie would never have managed to go on tour, you can't do it unless you have insurance, and you won't get insurance without the medical. It's always been up to Jo to get him through all that.
'All communication has gone through Jo for years, so now Mick has really washed his hands of Ronnie. The feeling is that he can't come back after this one. Ronnie's always been a bit lost and, without Jo, nobody can reach him.'
After the violent incident with Katya, police bailed Ronnie until January 10 on suspicion of assault. Who knows whether he will face charges.
He is said to be 'in a bad way', drinking heavily on his own, with no one to stop him. He is a lifelong alcoholic, has been to rehab at least seven times and has been told often that if he does not stop drinking, it will kill him.
Ronnie is, though, in the grip of a downward spiral which is familiar to his loved ones, who have seen him on this path before.
He does not answer his telephone and he does not respond to emails, not even from Jo. The only person he sees, I'm told, is Jamie, Jo's son from a previous relationship.
This is quite a surprise because Jamie used to manage the rocker, but he was sacked earlier this year when Ronnie was under Katya's influence.
But Jamie still loves Ronnie and must be a forgiving sort because he visits Ronnie in his rented Surrey home to see how he is getting on. Ronnie also sees one friend - an artist named Bruce - and his chauffeur. Beyond that, there seems to be no one at all.
'Katya has had a really damaging effect on Ronnie,' says one of Jo's friends.
'Jo had helped to keep him integrated socially and to keep him in with the Stones and in with his friends and in with his family.
'The view from here is that with Katya it was all just booze and sex - and he ditched everything for that.'
The Wood family blame Ekaterina for 'isolating' Ronnie and are desperately worried about his health. Jo keeps on telling friends she just wants to get Ronnie to see a doctor. She has asked him to, but he has slipped beyond her control.
Although Jo says she is happy - liberated and reborn now she does not have to take care of Ronnie's every need, put up with his moods or take responsibility for moderating his drinking - people who know her think she may yet take him back.
One close friend of Jo's put the chances of that at 50-50 this week.
The fact Jo has not found a man since they split last July is significant. Jo has always loved Ronnie deeply and is now having to ask herself whether she can make the sacrifice necessary to save him again.
'Jo has always treated Ronnie like one of her children and you don't ever stop loving a child, no matter what they do,' said a friend.
Officially, Jo will not say anything. Her spokeswoman Gemma Waters says she 'wouldn't know at all' if a reunion is on the cards. 'Jo is just busy planning for Christmas, she says. 'I know that Ronnie isn't going for Christmas dinner,' she told me.
'He was asked, but he definitely isn't going.'
That Jo seems to be having cold feet over her plans to sell their family home and move into a bachelor-girl flat does, however, appear suggestive.
'I don't know whether she is really going to put the house on the market after New Year. It has been a happy home and she has loved living in it,' says Gemma.
Selling up would be a definitive way of moving on, and although Jo talks a lot about doing just that, the people close to her think she doesn't quite have the ruthless edge necessary to cut her ties in this way. Especially as it is so clear that Ronnie is in a crisis.
Ronnie isn't in rehab, but it is obvious he needs to go. He has been told he has emphysema, but continues to smoke. He has been told another few months of drinking will kill him, and yet he continues with that, too.
Ronnie has made and lost a fortune at least twice over but remains helplessly naive about money. And now he is drinking again, there is little prospect of him earning more. His family suspect Katya did pretty well out of him - he is a generous man.
As she herself said in Hello!: 'He's generous with everybody. He'll buy stuff for people he's just met.'
There is a theory that Katya's mother Irina prodded Ronnie into making generous gifts to her daughter - such as buying a car, setting up a bank account for her, giving her constant gifts and so on.
They think Irina used to encourage this generosity by telling Ronnie: 'If it wasn't for you, Katya would be at university - look at what she has given up for you.'
That said, Katya does not seem to have exited the liaison with much more than she had when she went into it. Her effect, though, on Ronnie has been immense and, beyond any doubt, destructive.
After going through rehab last summer, he fairly quickly started to drink wine again and some months ago moved back on to vodka and brandy.
He knows it is bad for him - as he told an interviewer a couple of months ago: 'Mr Hyde comes out, and the older I get the worse I get.'
Katya certainly never seems to have tried very hard to keep Ronnie sober.
They would start off on a binge by drinking a lot together, then she would decide she'd had enough and Ronnie would just want to keep on going. Inevitably they would argue. She was, in the early days, a heavy boozer like him.
'We would have the best nights out, then I would know how to stop and he wouldn't,' she told Hello! - demonstrating an ignorance about alcoholism which almost takes your breath away.
Ronnie is reckless about his health. He's been told so often he's about to die that he doesn't take any notice of the doctors. He calls himself a 'permanent teenager' but his family think, at 62, he's heading for the grave.
Is there anyone, you wonder, who can save him?
____________________________________________
LJ.
Have The Stones dumped Ronnie Wood over his tawdry romance?
Doesn't she look dewy and radiant? With her blonde hair stylishly backcombed and a pile of Topshop bracelets adorning her slender arms, Ekaterina Ivanova could be someone's daughter celebrating her A-levels - rather than a Russian 'artist' announcing her separation from Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood in this week's Hello! magazine.
Her interview is presented in a very 'Hello!' style. In fact, the reality of the 21-year-old's liaison with alcoholic Wood - who left his wife of 23 years for Ekaterina, then fell off the wagon in spectacular style, only to be observed dragging her along the street in Claygate, Surrey, and threatening her with a lighted cigarette - is sordid and unpleasant.
But Ekaterina, also known as Katya, manages to coat the whole tawdry story in sugar. 'We used to draw together, dance, joke,' she says. 'The whole thing started off like a fairy tale, but then it felt like an evil fairy tale. I'd be trapped there with an evil goblin king.'
In the interview, Katya reveals not very much about life with Ronnie - who is 41 years her senior - and doesn't seem to waste a shred of sympathy on him or feel a twinge of guilt about her part in ending his happy and supportive marriage with Jo, 54.
Their one pastime, says Katya, was watching rubbish satellite TV together - but Ronnie was often 'very drunk', especially towards the end of the romance. He used to have violent tantrums and do silly impressions of her voice.
'In the end I think he needed to be mothered. I think that's the kind of person he needs to be with. I tried and tried but it didn't make me happy,' she says - with the selfishness often displayed by the very young.
That Jo Wood had selflessly been performing precisely that function for Ronnie - and that it had made both of them happy - seems not to occur to her.
And so, after 18 months, she's off. Katya was this week trying to sell her story, once again, for more money.
Her PR adviser, Phil Hall, hints there is plenty which she hasn't been able to tell, for legal reasons - presumably because it touches on allegations of domestic violence. 'She has a lot more to say, if she chooses to,' he tells me.
But, as Katya exits, what of Ronnie? He doesn't, it transpires, have any great dispute with her version of their disastrous romance. But it is a liaison which has had severe consequences for him.
Not only has it cost him his marriage but, as we shall see, Ronnie's dalliance with Katya will probably end up costing him his place in the Rolling Stones.
David Rigg, Ronnie's spokesman, told me: 'We are not going to comment (on Katya's interview). Ronnie will not be making any statements or giving any interviews.'
Rigg confirms Ronnie has no professional engagements of any sort lined up. In fact, his diary seems to be entirely blank.
Considering this, it is perhaps surprising that he has turned down Jo's generous offer to come back to the old marital home for a Christmas lunch.
He could have joined his wife, children and their extended family around the table at their home, Holmwood, a hunting lodge which backs onto Richmond Park in South-West London.
But I'm told that last Sunday, when Jo offered him the chance to come back for lunch, Ronnie asked her: 'What about the other 364 days of the year?' He quite clearly wants his wife back - but the answer to that, at least for now, is no. It seems Ronnie is truly on his own.
The trendy friends he used to have, such as model Kate Moss and party organiser Fran Cutler, stopped seeing him when he was with Katya because she complained they looked down on her. She used to say they made her feel like the Soho waitress she once was.
Ronnie no longer speaks to bandmate Keith Richards either, despite the fact the pair were great drink and drug buddies for years. Friends tell me they fell out some time ago.
Even Mick Jagger is steering clear. I have been told he is looking for a new guitarist for the Rolling Stones and, despite the fact the Stones have always denied there will be a tour in 2010, it is now looking like a distinct possibility.
And if the rumours are true and another money-spinning Stones tour does go ahead, you can bet it will do so without unreliable Ronnie.
'It's one thing to say "Let's have the Stones frightening the grannies, let's all be debauched and wild", but it's just not acceptable to have one seen choking his girlfriend,' said a friend of the band's.
'There are two things you can't be seen to do, which is hit women and get involved with under-age girls. Thanks to Ronnie and Bill Wyman (who seduced and went on to marry 13-year-old Mandy Smith), Mick has had a full house now.'
It's all such a contrast to the calm days when Jo was Ronnie's loyal linchpin.
She used to be on the Stones' payroll as Ronnie's 'dresser' and would come along on every tour, cooking him organic beans on toast and free-range poached eggs on a little Primus stove. You could argue that she was almost as much a member of the band as he was.
Jagger had sided with Jo from the beginning. 'Mick tried to intervene right at the start of the relationship with Katya,' says the friend.
'There was a plan to set up Katya in a flat in Tottenham Court Road, get Ronnie to rehab and then lead him back to Jo.
'Mick has always relied on Jo to be his conduit through to Ronnie - he has relied on her to get Ronnie to work, to keep him well enough to pass a medical for the tour.
'Without Jo, Ronnie would never have managed to go on tour, you can't do it unless you have insurance, and you won't get insurance without the medical. It's always been up to Jo to get him through all that.
'All communication has gone through Jo for years, so now Mick has really washed his hands of Ronnie. The feeling is that he can't come back after this one. Ronnie's always been a bit lost and, without Jo, nobody can reach him.'
After the violent incident with Katya, police bailed Ronnie until January 10 on suspicion of assault. Who knows whether he will face charges.
He is said to be 'in a bad way', drinking heavily on his own, with no one to stop him. He is a lifelong alcoholic, has been to rehab at least seven times and has been told often that if he does not stop drinking, it will kill him.
Ronnie is, though, in the grip of a downward spiral which is familiar to his loved ones, who have seen him on this path before.
He does not answer his telephone and he does not respond to emails, not even from Jo. The only person he sees, I'm told, is Jamie, Jo's son from a previous relationship.
This is quite a surprise because Jamie used to manage the rocker, but he was sacked earlier this year when Ronnie was under Katya's influence.
But Jamie still loves Ronnie and must be a forgiving sort because he visits Ronnie in his rented Surrey home to see how he is getting on. Ronnie also sees one friend - an artist named Bruce - and his chauffeur. Beyond that, there seems to be no one at all.
'Katya has had a really damaging effect on Ronnie,' says one of Jo's friends.
'Jo had helped to keep him integrated socially and to keep him in with the Stones and in with his friends and in with his family.
'The view from here is that with Katya it was all just booze and sex - and he ditched everything for that.'
The Wood family blame Ekaterina for 'isolating' Ronnie and are desperately worried about his health. Jo keeps on telling friends she just wants to get Ronnie to see a doctor. She has asked him to, but he has slipped beyond her control.
Although Jo says she is happy - liberated and reborn now she does not have to take care of Ronnie's every need, put up with his moods or take responsibility for moderating his drinking - people who know her think she may yet take him back.
One close friend of Jo's put the chances of that at 50-50 this week.
The fact Jo has not found a man since they split last July is significant. Jo has always loved Ronnie deeply and is now having to ask herself whether she can make the sacrifice necessary to save him again.
'Jo has always treated Ronnie like one of her children and you don't ever stop loving a child, no matter what they do,' said a friend.
Officially, Jo will not say anything. Her spokeswoman Gemma Waters says she 'wouldn't know at all' if a reunion is on the cards. 'Jo is just busy planning for Christmas, she says. 'I know that Ronnie isn't going for Christmas dinner,' she told me.
'He was asked, but he definitely isn't going.'
That Jo seems to be having cold feet over her plans to sell their family home and move into a bachelor-girl flat does, however, appear suggestive.
'I don't know whether she is really going to put the house on the market after New Year. It has been a happy home and she has loved living in it,' says Gemma.
Selling up would be a definitive way of moving on, and although Jo talks a lot about doing just that, the people close to her think she doesn't quite have the ruthless edge necessary to cut her ties in this way. Especially as it is so clear that Ronnie is in a crisis.
Ronnie isn't in rehab, but it is obvious he needs to go. He has been told he has emphysema, but continues to smoke. He has been told another few months of drinking will kill him, and yet he continues with that, too.
Ronnie has made and lost a fortune at least twice over but remains helplessly naive about money. And now he is drinking again, there is little prospect of him earning more. His family suspect Katya did pretty well out of him - he is a generous man.
As she herself said in Hello!: 'He's generous with everybody. He'll buy stuff for people he's just met.'
There is a theory that Katya's mother Irina prodded Ronnie into making generous gifts to her daughter - such as buying a car, setting up a bank account for her, giving her constant gifts and so on.
They think Irina used to encourage this generosity by telling Ronnie: 'If it wasn't for you, Katya would be at university - look at what she has given up for you.'
That said, Katya does not seem to have exited the liaison with much more than she had when she went into it. Her effect, though, on Ronnie has been immense and, beyond any doubt, destructive.
After going through rehab last summer, he fairly quickly started to drink wine again and some months ago moved back on to vodka and brandy.
He knows it is bad for him - as he told an interviewer a couple of months ago: 'Mr Hyde comes out, and the older I get the worse I get.'
Katya certainly never seems to have tried very hard to keep Ronnie sober.
They would start off on a binge by drinking a lot together, then she would decide she'd had enough and Ronnie would just want to keep on going. Inevitably they would argue. She was, in the early days, a heavy boozer like him.
'We would have the best nights out, then I would know how to stop and he wouldn't,' she told Hello! - demonstrating an ignorance about alcoholism which almost takes your breath away.
Ronnie is reckless about his health. He's been told so often he's about to die that he doesn't take any notice of the doctors. He calls himself a 'permanent teenager' but his family think, at 62, he's heading for the grave.
Is there anyone, you wonder, who can save him?
____________________________________________
LJ.
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