Mick and Jerry

Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall began "dating" in 1977, when he was still married to Bianca. They married in Bali thirteen years later, in an "unofficial private marriage ceremony." According to The Grauniad, the wedding was "performed in the modest home of a woodcarver ... the rituals involved a Hindu priest slitting the throat of a black chicken and scattering the blood to purify the dwelling."

The marriage ended after the Brazilian "underwear model" Luciana Gimenez Morad announced that she was pregnant with Jagger's child, and in 1999 the High Court of England and Wales declared it "invalid, unlawful, and null and void." In a sworn statement read out to the court, Jerry Hall (the petitioner) said she had believed the marriage was valid, even though she had never seen any records or certificates. A report from two experts on Indonesian law showed however that the marriage had never been registered, as required under local law. The judge ruled that the ceremony "did not, according to local law, bring about a legal marriage", and he "pronounced a decree of nullity."

© Haydn Thompson 2021