Jerry Hall is 70, single for one of the first times in her life, and is loving this incarnation.
asserted
Hall → love → incarnation
“It sounds selfish, but I really enjoy just doing what I want to do,” she tells me in her Scarlett O’Hara drawl.
asserted
she → sound → drawl
“You worry about getting old and being alone, then you get there and think, ‘Hey, this is really great!’
asserted
this → worry → ?
“I was a bit nervous about living alone at first,” she continues.
asserted
she → live → ?
“I thought, ‘Oh God, I’ve never done this ever’, but it’s so easy!
asserted
it → think → this
The house stays so clean.
asserted
house → stay → ?
You can watch anything you want on TV.”
asserted
you → watch → TV
She loves hosting friends for lunches and dinners.
asserted
She → love → lunches
“But now I only invite the people I love.
asserted
I → invite → people
It’s the most peaceful, stress-free time of my life.”
asserted
It → ’ → life
She bursts out laughing, before adding with considerable satisfaction: “And I can sleep diagonally across the bed.”
asserted
I → burst → bed
Hall is the OG supermodel, a six-foot (183-centimetre) platinum-blonde glamazon personified, whose extraordinary life reads like a Zelig-ish parade of greatest cultural hits.
asserted
life → personify → hits
Everyone knows about the men: her teenage engagement to Roxy Music’s Bryan Ferry, whom she dumped for Mick Jagger, the notoriously philandering father of her four children.
asserted
she → know → children
They divorced in 1999, and in 2016 she startled many by marrying media mogul Rupert Murdoch, a marriage that ended six years later.
asserted
that → divorce → Murdoch
But to define Hall by her relationships is to diminish her brilliance.
asserted
define → define → brilliance
This is the woman who escaped small-town Texas aged 16 for Paris, where she hung out with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, and flat-shared with Jessica Lange and Grace Jones.
asserted
she → escape → Lange
She refused to pose naked for Salvador Dalí (her mother wouldn’t have liked it) and gossiped at Studio 54 with Andy Warhol, Tennessee Williams, Diana Vreeland and Truman Capote.
asserted
mother → refuse → Williams
She was the face of Dior and Versace, appeared in films such as Batman and Urban Cowboy, and caused a furore when – at 44 – she stripped naked in the West End playing Mrs Robinson in The Graduate.
asserted
she → appear → Graduate
Now, in a less highbrow but still fabulous twist, she’s beloved by a whole new generation as one of the 21 contestants in the UK’s reality TV series Celebrity Traitors.
asserted
she → belove → series
“I lerved it!” she enthuses.
asserted
she → lerve → it
She must have made loads of new friends among her fellow traitors/faithfuls.
asserted
She → make → faithfuls
“I did!
asserted
I → do → ?
I lerved [comedians] Rob Beckett and Romesh [Ranganathan].
asserted
I → lerve → Beckett
They made me laugh so much.
asserted
me → make → ?
Rob and his family came over to have lunch with me the other day.
asserted
Rob → come → me
Fuhn – or “fun”, to stop with the phonetic transcription – is what Hall’s dedicated to chasing.
asserted
Hall → stop → what
Hugely charismatic, dramatic in her gestures and timing, she uses the word at least two dozen times during our conversation.
asserted
she → use → conversation
She certainly deserves it.
asserted
She → deserve → it
Today, she and Jagger are on great terms: she spent Christmas with him and his vast family at his Mustique estate in the Caribbean, and he and his 39-year-old girlfriend Melanie Hamrick attended her 70th birthday party in July.
asserted
he → spend → July
Her divorce from Murdoch is shrouded in non-disclosure agreements, but allegedly ended with him blindsiding her with an email.
uncertain
him → shroud → email
Yet now, those dark times have been firmly put aside.
asserted
times → put → ?
“They used to say we had three score [years] and 10,” she says.
asserted
she → use → years
“But nowadays, people live into their 80s, sometimes more.
asserted
people → live → 80s
And I’ve done my job.
asserted
I → do → job
I’ve had a great career, raised my children.
asserted
I → have → children
Now it’s fun time for me.”
asserted
it → ’ → me
It’s still a man’s world, let’s face it.
asserted
’s → ’ → it
But older women are being respected more.
asserted
women → respect → ?
Much of the fun derives from her girlfriends, many of whom she’s known for 50 years (“They come and stay and we have a great laugh”), some acquired in her most recent home in Oxfordshire, UK.
asserted
we → derive → Oxfordshire
It’s a far cry from the days when she was constantly – and not always successfully – heading off Jagger’s groupies (during their marriage he was serially unfaithful and had a son with Brazilian model Luciana Morad).
asserted
he → ’ → Morad
…and 66 more, not listed.
The Aporia
