From The Times
March 7, 2009
Jo Wood: I'm single (but I like it)
The former wife of Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood talks about modelling, dating and her wild new life of independence

Marianne Macdonald
My first impression of Jo Wood is one of wealth and expensiveness, in her designer jeans, pinstriped Jaeger jacket and blue platform Yves Saint Laurent stilettos. Her pale blonde hair is fluffed over her shoulders, and only a faint glaze of sadness or absence in her sea-blue eyes hints at the hammer that has been taken to her life since her Rolling Stone husband Ronnie ran off with a 20-year-old cocktail waitress last year. However, she points out stoutly: “I'm not going to sit at home doing the knitting - I'm a tough old bird.”

She giggles, sipping her double espresso. Is she really tough? “Yeah, I think I am. Yeah,” she adds, a little more doubtfully. “I take what life throws at me and I deal with it.” Just gets on with things? “Well, if I didn't,” she says in her girlish voice, “what would I be doing? I'd be sitting at home doing absolutely nothing, feeling sorry for myself, and I'm not that sort of person. I believe you have to get up and take care of yourself. And I have a great family that I need to be strong for, and grandchildren on the way.”

Wood is doing pretty well, it seems. In the days before our interview I have seen pictures of her sashaying down the catwalk for Vivienne Westwood, wearing a stunning bodycon dress at the Confessions of a Shopaholic premiere and driving home a bunch of toyboys from the Mayfair nightclub Mahiki to the Kingston upon Thames mansion she used to share with Ronnie.

“Oh, she's lovely. I've known Vivienne for years,” Wood says. “My assistant Emily rang me up and said, Vivienne wants you to go along and try on some clothes'. I felt the fattest there!” And the boys from Mahiki? “Oh, that was funny. My oldest son said, ‘Mum, you really can't be doing this.' Oh, come on, it's fun!” Her mouth crinkles in a mischievous grin. It's a glimpse of the only woman who kept up with the Rolling Stones for decades, worked as Ronnie's dresser on every tour, fought off the groupies by befriending them, and watched Keith Richards chop lines for her and her about-to-be husband en route to their 1984 wedding. Still, Wood, 53, can't understand the new paparazzi fascination with her. “Maybe they're waiting for me to stumble,” she muses. “Or maybe they're trying to catch me with a new man.” Or maybe she's just an inspiration, I say, showing that life after marriage can be fun. “Oh, that's good,” she says. “I like that. It definitely can be enjoyable. I'm enjoying myself.”

Which is not to say, of course, that it's not sad. “It's not sad any more,” she says. “I'm over that bit.” Really? That was quick. “Yeah, once I set my mind on something, that's it. I'm getting to know all my girlfriends again, hanging out with them.” What do they do? “We go out to dinner, I'll meet you there, let's go and do this, let's go shopping' - that kind of thing. And I talk to Jerry [Hall - Mick Jagger's ex and a Weekend agony aunt] all the time.”

So she's got herself back, in a way? “Yeah.” Wood smoothes her fringe out of her eyes. “They all helped. You need your girlfriends, don't you?”

She already had a marriage under her belt - she had her first son Jamie at 18 - when she met Ronnie at 22. She's not been single since. “No, never,” she agrees. It must feel weird? “No. It feels extremely natural. I love it. I like having time to say, Oh, what am I going to wear tonight?' I go up to the attic sometimes and look through all my old clothes. And I can just potter around and do what I want to do.” She couldn't do that before? “No,” she says, her tone changing slightly, “because I was always so worried about what Ronnie was going to wear ... Make sure the old man looks nice... It was all about Ronnie.”

Was that a bit unhealthy? “Most probably. I'm only discovering that now.” She giggles.

We are talking in the nerve centre of Jo Wood Organics, her award-winning beauty products business,which is going from strength to strength. As a recognised eco-ambassador, she is opening the Vitality Show, the organics fair at Earls Court, London. “For the past five years it's been my baby,” she says. “I brought out nine new products last year. I'm working hard to try to make it work and pay for itself.” I say she must also find it handy as a source of presents. “I do. Jerry said to me last year, I hope you're going to give me some of your products for Christmas'.”

And she's friends with Kate Moss, who uses it? “Yeah, Kate uses it. In fact, we're going to send my new friend Sarah Harding some products,” she grins at the unlikely connection with the notorious party animal from Girls Aloud (above), “over some products. I met her when I went to a nightclub the other day.”

She began the business after going organic as a result of falling ill in the early Nineties with an undiagnosed perforated appendix. She was put on steroids, which made her feel terrible. “And then I met Gerald Green; he's a herbalist, and he turned my life around. I purified my whole system. And that's when I fell in love with all things organic.

“Everyone thought I was mad.” I don't want to sound rude, I say, but she took a lot of drugs, presumably they also toxified her? “Of course, they did,” she exclaims. Does she regret that? “You can't go round in life having regrets.”

She's hilarious - she talks in the same laconic sentences as the other Rolling Stones and she has the same childish glint. She's very nice too, with no apparent ego, and for all her crazy, druggy past, has clearly created a strong, warm, loving family life. She looks great for 53, though not superhuman - she has the hands of a working mum and her figure isn't bizarrely stick-thin. A personal trainer comes to her house three or four times a week, and she runs and cycles in Richmond Park. She drinks alcohol only when she's out, and she wears sunblock year round.

I ask about her diet - it's all organic. She eats sheep's yoghurt and flax seed for breakfast. “And lunchtime I make myself a salad and I make sure I have carbs. And for dinner what I usually do is make a big pot of soup on a Monday and have it during the week.” Didn't she eat junk food before she went organic? “I've always been a good cook, but I didn't use organic ingredients,” she says. “My mother taught me to cook. I could put on Sunday roast when I was 10.”

Her eight-bed mansion has a grand, panelled hall and generally has high-end cars parked in front of it - even the hairdresser used to drive a Porsche. Now her children have left, it must be quieter, but her pregnant daughter Leah and her husband Jack have moved back into a cottage in the grounds because their home in Vauxhall has three flights of stairs. Leah's baby will be her sixth grandchild.

Would she ever remarry? “I have no idea,” she says. “Whatever life throws at you, who knows?” She thinks. “I liked being married.” I like her, I must say. She's certainly created a great life for herself, for all Ronnie's nonsense.

Jo's perfect weekend:

Green tea or builder's tea?

Green tea

Wine or water?

Mixture of both.

Owl or lark?

Owl (giggles).

Catwalk or long walk?

I love to go onlong walks, but I do like the catwalk - both.

Bardot or Monroe?

Bardot.

Hitting the town or hitting the sack?

I like both. um, both again. I like any club or restaurant where all my friends are.

I can't get through the weekend without ...

My family.

Botox or no tox?

No tox.

Yoga or Pilates?

A combination.

Chick-lit or feel the fear?

Feel the fear.

Showbiz party or girls' night in?

Showbiz party.

Book or DVD?

Book.

Toy boy or older man?

Don't know (giggles).

Amy Winehouse or Pete Doherty?

Amy. She's nice, not that I got any sense out of her.

Annabel's or Mahiki?

Mahiki.

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/celebrity/article5859960...

Jo who ?