The Rolling Stones are in the final stages of planning a tour of Europe this summer – but dates are being scheduled to avoid clashing with the FIFA World Cup.
Mick Jagger is famously an avid football fan and apparently doesn’t want to miss the games, which will be played in America, Canada and Mexico from June 11 to July 19 next year.
Jagger, an Arsenal fan, has been to the past four World Cups and is a regular at the Euros as well, sometimes taking his son Lucas (by model Luciana Morad) and more recently his youngest child, Deveraux, who is eight.
I’m told that the planned Rolling Stones dates – which will include a stop in London – are scattered across the continent over a two-month period, but Jagger has requested that football is factored into the logistics. It will take some doing, as he will need to hop continents in order to cheer on England.
The band has yet to make an official announcement about the tour, but guitarist Ronnie Wood let slip recently that they had almost completed a new album, which has been produced by Andrew Watt; and that they then plan to tour with it.
It’s thought that the album, the band’s 25th, will come out in spring next year. It follows 2023’s well-received Hackney Diamonds.
At an event to promote his solo anthology album, Fearless, in September, Wood said: ‘Yes, you will be getting a new album next year. It is done.’
Arsenal fan Mick Jagger with his son Devereux watching Arsenal take on Fulham at Craven Cottage wearing a cap reading ‘DILF’ in 2023
When asked if the band would be heading out on tour in celebration of the forthcoming LP, he said: ‘Yes we are hoping to do some dates. Hopefully we will be back out there but I am still waiting to find out myself.’
Back in May, Keith Richards’ son Marlon also revealed that a new album was in the works.
In an interview with Record Collector he said: ‘They’re in town right now, recording. They’re in Chiswick [West London] or somewhere like that; I think they’re nearly done. They still maintain these ridiculous hours: after lunch until, like, two in the morning.’
When it comes to football, there has been silly talk of a ‘curse of Jagger’ after teams watched by the Stones frontman fared poorly in 2010 and 2014. He was in the stands when hosts Brazil were trounced 7-1 by Germany in the 2014 World Cup semi-final, but he denied being a jinx. ‘I can take responsibility for the first German goal, but not the other six,’ he quipped.
Footballer Joe Cole claimed last year he’d been distracted during the 2007 FA Cup final after spotting Jagger.
He told a podcast Mick’s ‘snake hips’ dancing in the run-up to the Chelsea v Man United contest made it hard for him to concentrate, and he was substituted off. ‘I just went proper fan boy,’ Cole said. ‘I think I went: “All right Mick!” And he’s probably why I got taken off at half time. My head was gone. I couldn’t concentrate. Mick had done me.’
Ronnie Wood is a football fan, too; and he and Jagger watched ‘El Clasico’ – Barcelona v Real Madrid – together in 2023.
Two years ago, Mick, who is now 82, was spotted with sons Lucas and Deveraux watching Arsenal take on Fulham … wearing a cap which read ‘DILF’. Cheeky!
Former Top Gear star Richard Hammond has removed his former wife Mindy from his TV production company.
Records show that Mindy ceased to be a director of Chimp Productions on October 9 – long after they announced that they had split up.
The couple, who were married for 23 years, and together for 28, reached the end of the road in January.
He has moved out of the house they used to share in Herefordshire.
Meanwhile, Jeremy Clarkson, Hammond’s old Top Gear partner, is setting up another business.
Clarkson, who already farms, brews and runs a pub, has filed documents for a new venture called ‘Still Breathing’ — an apparent reference to his recent health scares.
He was rushed to hospital last October for emergency heart surgery, to re-open blocked arteries.
There is no word yet on what exactly the company will be doing. On the form at Companies House it simply says the nature of the business is ‘security dealing on own account’.
Why Sean is happy to be back in the saddle
Sean Bean loves a good fight scene – especially a sword fight. The actor, who memorably played Ned Stark in Game Of Thrones, and Boromir in The Lord Of The Rings films, stars as the Sheriff of Nottingham in the new MGM+ series Robin Hood.
‘Me and Jack [Patten, who plays Robin] had some great fights,’ he recalled. ‘I love that aspect to the job.’
The Sheffield-born actor also enjoys being on horseback. ‘It’s always a joy to ride horses in anything, really; and I was just on a horse all day on set [in Robin Hood]. I’ve rode a few horses in me time, and he was a good ’un.’
Freddie’s former fiancee tried to derail ‘love child’ book launch, says author
Lawyers acting for Freddie Mercury’s one-time girlfriend Mary Austin sent ‘heavy’ letters to discourage publication of a book about the Queen star’s secret daughter.
So says author Lesley-Ann Jones, whose book – Love, Freddie – came out in September and told the sensational story of a woman, known only as ‘B’, who says she was fathered by Mercury during a fling.
Ms Jones said law firm Farrer & Co ‘came down heavy’. She told me: ‘Mary’s lawyers tried everything to stop my book. When our lawyers refused to hand over a copy of the manuscript … they found the names of foreign publishers who were publishing [it] on Amazon and tried to get a copy from one of them.’
Ms Jones’s book is based on 17 volumes of journals given to ‘B’ by her late father in 1991 – the year he died. In August, before Love, Freddie came out, Mercury’s former fiancée Austin (pictured, with the star) told the Sunday Times she’d be ‘astonished’ if Freddie had a daughter. She said she had no knowledge of such a child; and maintained the star did not keep diaries or notebooks.
Freddie Mercury and Mary Austin. Lawyers acting for Ms Austin sent ‘heavy’ letters to discourage publication of a book about the Queen star’s secret daughter
Following the interview, Ms Jones said she got death threats. ‘Queen fans turned on me in droves, and the abuse online soared,’ she said. ‘Freddie’s daughter’s late mother has been accused of being a witch, of having stolen his sperm, all sorts.’
The author insisted: ‘Freddie’s daughter exists. She is who she says she is. I met her … She is the spitting image of him … She still has the 17 notebooks … They, and my four years of conversations with her, are the only sources of my book.’
She points out that once her book hit the shelves, ‘Mary’s lawyers fell silent … there has been not a peep’.
‘Mary has not commented. Brian May and Roger Taylor have kept shtum. The Queen organisation: not a word … If my book were fake, and the revelations in it were untrue, they would have sued us by now.’
Meanwhile, Mary Austin is bringing out her own book in 2026 – endorsed by Queen’s record label Sony – based on an ‘archive of notebooks, previously unpublished material, alternate lyrics and abandoned verses’.
Begorrah! It’s Helen, honorary Irishwoman
Helen Mirren got a lot of flak for her Irish accent in crime drama MobLand, in which she played Maeve Harrigan, the wife of a crime boss. Her on-screen husband, Pierce Brosnan got a bit of abuse, too – and he actually is Irish.
However, Mirren is standing by her interpretation in the Guy Ritchie series, which came out in the spring; not least because she claims she’s an ‘honorary Irishwoman’, thanks to her long (and long ago) romance with Irish actor Liam Neeson.
The actress said: ‘Pierce called me before day one. He said: “Listen, I went very Irish.”
‘I was told, too – on my first day. Seven o’clock in the morning, Guy Ritchie said: “Go Irish!” So I went: “Oh bloody hell.” ’
She added: ‘I had just done 1923 [in which she plays Irish matriarch Cara Dutton], so that was a help.
‘But it was a last-minute decision. It’s that sort of wonderful, roller-coaster, by the seat-of-your-pants kind of feeling.’
Helen Mirren got a lot of flak for her Irish accent in crime drama MobLand, in which she played Maeve Harrigan
Her on-screen husband, Pierce Brosnan (who plays Conrad Harrigan) got a bit of abuse, too – and he actually is Irish
Mirren said she and Brosnan (who plays London-based gangster Conrad Harrigan) ‘talked a little bit about back story’ for their characters. ‘You know, they grew up in Ireland together. I’m older than Pierce, so I’m imagining that Maeve was older than Conrad, but they fell insanely, sexually and intellectually in love.
‘They had a similar sort of ambition and wildness and amorality, and they recognised that in each other, and I think their Irishness is very, very important to the two of them.
‘And Pierce is Irish. I’m not Irish, but I did live with an Irishman for four years, so that helped. I’m an honorary Irishwoman.’
Mirren’s five-year romance with Neeson started in 1980 on the set of medieval fantasy film Excalibur, in which she played the scheming Morgana and he played Sir Gawain. She has been married to director Taylor Hackford since 1997.
Brosnan previously revealed that he had just 15 to 20 minutes to come up with a Kerry accent –very different to the one he grew up with in County Meath.
He and Mirren had prepared to play the Harrigans as Londoners, but were told otherwise by director Ritchie.
I’m not the lord of the rings – they rule ME, insists Michael McIntyre
Michael McIntyre – who has lost weight after a three-week dabble with fat-loss jabs – complains that he is ‘nagged’ by his wife Kitty and his Oura ring to do more exercise
Michael McIntyre – who has lost weight after a three-week dabble with fat-loss jabs – complains that he is ‘nagged’ by his wife Kitty and his Oura ring to do more exercise.
The comedian told an audience: ‘The ring is linked to an app, which basically tells me I am not doing enough.
‘I get messages saying I am not halfway through a daily goal.
‘I don’t give a s***! I just ignore and delete it.
‘It says: “Perhaps this afternoon, some exercise?” I am 49 years old now and I have basically ended up with these two rings – and both link me to something that nags me to get off my fat arse. This is where I have ended up.’
He adds that the Oura ring (which uses infrared sensors to collect health data) also monitors his sleep and sends him a review.
‘My wife asks me how I have slept, and I say: “If you really want to know, I can email you a PDF.” ’
