Inside Rod Stewart and Penny Lancaster’s 25-year love affair as the pair enter ‘stalemate’

After more than 25 years together, love Rod Stewart and Penny Lancaster tried and true blue. But no couple is immune to the storms that plague all relationships, and now Rod and Penny seem to be in some difficult situations.

According to the Daily Mail, the pair have reached a “stalemate” over their split living situation. Stewart is enjoying life in Los Angeles, jetting off to Las Vegas for a residency at Caesars Palace (which has been extended until 2025) and throwing parties for her best friends at her custom-built Beverley Hills mansion every weekend.

Meanwhile, Lancaster wants to embrace British life properly and moves full-time to a Grade II listed country house in Essex, while working in a role as a special constable for the City of London police.

The Mail described Stewart’s Los Angeles property as a “golden cage” for Lancaster. It has been for sale since December 2023, with Stewart originally planning to move to London with Lancaster, but the singer has since turned down offers for the property, now listed at $80m.

So, trouble in paradise? Or rather – among the heavens? Or is it all much ado about nothing? Here, we look back at Rod Stewart and Penny Lancaster’s love story, as well as all the latest developments.

In January 1999, 27-year-old Penny Lancaster met Rod Stewart, then 53, while at a party with friends at the Dorchester Hotel. His friend had dared Lancaster to ask for Stewart’s autograph. Lancaster revealed that he was a photography student at Barking College in Essex, and through this conversation, he was able to get a job as Stewart’s tour photographer.

“When we first met, I got his phone number – I just broke up,” Rod said on an episode of Loose Women, where Penny worked as a host, in 2015. “I gave it to the bass player … and he kept it for six months!” he added, explaining that his bandmate didn’t think he was ready to date again. By this time, Stewart was already a father to six children, who he shared with four women.

A month later, singer Maggie May was able to track down Lancaster’s number and called to ask if she could take him out for dinner (and finally see the pictures taken on the tour).

Lancaster came to dinner in leather pants and Stewart was “surprised by her fresh face and girlish demeanor.” The problem is, she’s been in a relationship with someone for the last ten years – and she’s engaged. “He’s always been very open with me about it. Recently, he said, things aren’t going so well, but he doesn’t like to let go of this guy,” Stewart wrote in his autobiography.

Then, when he visited Stewart’s house one day and saw a painting in the bedroom, he asked Lancaster to sleep in his bed. He leant over and kissed her, and “inverted” kiss which said Lancaster Called “the most romantic and seductive meeting of lips” she had ever known.

The pair began dating and Lancaster left the other couple even though she feared Stewart – who already has six children – might mean she never had children of her own. But not for long, because…

Rod Stewart wrote in his autobiography that the memory of 9/11 changed his views on raising his family. “And then came September 11, 2004, the third anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center,” he said. “We were sitting by the lake on one of those sunny, clear English autumn evenings, and talking about the families that were broken that day and the children that were left behind. After a while, I said: ‘Let’s make a baby.’ And I know what I mean.”

In a year, they will welcome their first child, Alastair Stewart.

Stewart proposed to the newly pregnant Lancaster in March 2005, but he had to do one thing first. “In March 2005, when Penny was approaching her 33rd birthday, I took her to Paris for a day with her mom and dad,” Stewart wrote in her autobiography. “When we crossed the Tarmac to the plane, I hung back a little with Penny’s father, and above the whine of the engine, leaned into his ear and said: ‘Do I have permission to ask my daughter to marry me?’ Graham is a tough guy, but his legs are almost out from under him. I have to hold him for a second. ‘Yes!’ he said. ‘Yes!'”

Stewart proposed to Lancaster that day, at the Jules Verne restaurant on the second platform of the Eiffel Tower. “Penny had a minute of disbelief,” Stewart remembers the moment. “His hands came to his face and his eyes looked good. Finally, I said: ‘Please say something Penny, because my knees are killing me.'” Rod also wrote that tonight was the night she conceived Alastair.

As for Penny’s side: “I was stunned, threw my arms around him and burst into tears,” Lancaster told the Standard at the time. “I opened the box and he bought the most beautiful diamond engagement ring from the Duchess – classic and beautiful.”

A little over two years later, Lancaster and Stewart said ‘I do’ in a chapel strewn with white roses in the town of Santa Margherita, on the Italian Riviera. Penny wore a strapless dress by Spanish designer Manuel Mota with an embellished bodice and soft up-do, while Rod went full pointed collar and ivory vest in a black and white suit.

The couple will later renew their vows in 2017, in a ceremony with 100 friends and family members at their Essex home. The couple exchanged vows under a beech tree in the garden, before enjoying a three-course meal in the marquee.

Rod Stewart and Penny Lancaster welcomed their second son, Aiden, in 2011, after a brief struggle with conception. “Aiden took a while,” Stewart wrote in his memoir. “We tried for two years before specialists discovered that Penny had high levels of mercury in her body and advised us to try in vitro fertilization.

“We had three rounds of IVF, which was physically punishing for the woman and painful when it didn’t work. But we kept going. I was traveling in Moscow in the summer of 2010 when Penny called to say that she was finally pregnant, and we were crying with joy.

Lancaster and Stewart are still going strong so far, but have been rocked by recent rumors of relationship turmoil as the pair struggle to decide where they should live. Lancaster is a special police officer for the City of London Police and Loose Women panellists, which links him to London. Plus, she’s a country girl at heart, and wants Stewart to commit to living in a Grade II listed country mansion in Essex full time.

Stewart, meanwhile, is enjoying living in her Los Angeles mansion as she extends her Las Vegas residency for another year, with her final show set to take place in June 2025. A night at home for many of her best friends,” a source told The Daily Mail about Stewart’s life in LA.

“Penny has no plans to return to LA, which she is not a fan of, while Rod has no plans to move back right now,” the source continued. “They’re in a stalemate and Penny is mad that Rod didn’t speak up. It’s about saving their marriage now.”

However, Rod Stewart put his foot down yesterday, firmly quashing all rumors of a “breakup” between him and Penny. “There’s absolutely no rift between Penny and I, and there’s no disagreement about where we should live, in fact quite the opposite,” he said on Instagram.

“We moved permanently back to our beloved England a year ago, but fortunately we also have homes in various countries, which we love to visit.

“Originally we thought we’d sell our house in LA, but having spent so much time this summer with family and friends during our Vegas residency, we knew we’d make a home there.”

“Penny and I couldn’t be more in love with each other after 27 glorious years. Trust me on this… there is no disharmony in our marriage.” So for all you Rod and Penny fans out there, fear not, they are strong enough to handle any long distance mayhem.