Bianca Jagger on Marrying ‘The Worst Husband a Woman Could Have’
In 1971, Bianca Jagger got a crash course in the difficulties of having a rock star husband. After a whirlwind romance with The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger, the couple married and welcomed a child together. Bianca, who said she realized her relationship wouldn’t work out on her wedding day, believed that many musicians wanted a submissive wife. This made marriage to them a challenge.
Bianca Jagger said it was not easy to have a husband who was a rock star
When Bianca began a relationship with Mick, she said she felt it was important to maintain her individuality. She wanted others to see her as her own person, not an extension of a celebrity.
“And I had my mind set that I was not going to become Mrs. So-and-so — regardless of who I was married to. I was going to be an individual with my own personality, and I was going to do as I wanted and as I liked,” she told Vanity Fair in 1986, adding, “I was not ready to make any compromises then. I knew much less than I do today.”
Unfortunately, her new husband did not seem to feel the same way. Bianca believed Mick, like many of his peers, wanted a submissive wife.
“I was joking with [Rod Stewart’s ex-wife] Alana Stewart the other day about writing a cheek-in-tongue book on How to Survive Marriage and Divorce to a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star,” she said. “We were saying what are the qualities required: submission. It’s probably the most male-chauvinistic-oriented society. A rock star is the worst husband a woman could have.”
Bianca Jagger shared why it was not an easy decision to divorce her husband
Bianca and Mick lived largely separate lives during their marriage. They divorced in 1978, which Bianca said came as something of a disappointment. While their marriage had grown chilly, she hadn’t wanted it to end in divorce.
“I was brought up Catholic, to believe that marriage is for life,” she told The Guardian in 2020. “And we failed.”
She also had seen the way divorce had impacted her mother and her childhood.
“I saw how difficult life became for my mother from that moment on,” she remembers. “And how my life changed as well. After having an easy life, suddenly my mother had to work and suddenly my mother was treated completely differently. I saw the fate that women in countries like Nicaragua were condemned to have, to be second-rate citizens. I didn’t want to have the same future that my mother had.”
This was part of the reason why she wanted to maintain a sense of individuality. She knew she had to be able to protect herself if her marriage ended.
John Lennon thought someone like Bianca Jagger would kill The Rolling Stones
Mick continued to perform with The Rolling Stones throughout his marriage and long after his divorce. John Lennon predicted that if Mick were to marry, it would ruin the band.
“People who relied on the fact that they wiggled, sexily, in their stage acts. We didn’t rely on wiggling, we still don’t, and we won’t,” he said in the book Lennon: The Definitive Biography by Ray Coleman. “We were never dependent on fans being in love with us so much as others are. Not like Jagger. He’s the Charlie Chaplin of rock’ n’ roll. Now he can’t afford to get married! The Stones would be all over.”
