Mick Jagger and his girlfriend, retired ballet dancer Melanie Hamrick, are not concerned with having a 44-year age gap.
“I don’t think about it. Everyone’s going to have their opinion. If you think about others’ opinions, no matter where you are in life, you’re going to have a problem and you’re going to analyze it,” Hamrick, 37, told The Sunday Times in a profile published on Sunday, September 22. “I put the blinders on. Am I happy? Yes. Are the people in my life happy? Yes. Am I hurting anyone? No. OK, they can mind their own business.”
Jagger, 81, and Hamrick met after a Rolling Stones concert in February 2014, which took place in Tokyo. Hamrick, then 26, and her colleagues at the American Ballet Theatre, in town for their own performance, had been given comped tickets to the gig.
The couple started dating the following summer, with Hamrick noting to The Times that she wasn’t starstruck by the Rolling Stones frontman.
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“Ballet dancers meet some of the biggest stars and act, like, ‘Who are you?’ Because, to us, ballet dancers are the gods. That’s who you study and look up to. You’re so in your world,” Hamrick recalled, noting she was more impressed by Jagger’s friend playwright Tom Stoppard. “I was, like, ‘Oh my God, can I tell you about my paper [from school]?’ and Mick said, ‘What are you doing?’, and I was, like, ‘I love you, Tom!’”
Jagger and Hamrick later welcomed son Deveraux “Dev,” now 7, in December 2016. The musician is also father to seven older children from past relationships.
Jagger, Hamrick and Dev split time between the French countryside and New York whenever the Rolling Stones are on hiatus. (Dev attends school in France, but works with tutors when the family is on the road.)
“Mick can’t stay put and I’m similar,” Hamrick said. “I’ll say, ‘I want to stay put.’ Then after two weeks, I’m, like, ‘Where are we going?’”
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In 2023, Hamrick received a diamond “promise ring” from Jagger, who is her biggest career cheerleader. Hamrick is author to ballet-centric novels First Position and The Unraveling.
“Mick said, he’s, like, ‘Throbbing was used a lot in book two,’” Hamrick quipped in Sunday’s profile.
It was Jagger who encouraged Hamrick to start writing in the first place.
“I was, like, ‘I want to write a book. I want to write a book [after my dance retirement].’ And then, finally, he said, ‘Oh my God, write the book!’” she recalled. “I’m really thankful I found writing. I see some dancers holding on when they leave, and you just want them to find peace because some dancers should be ballet dancers and some should move on.”
