Mick Jagger‘s girlfriend is dismissing critics of their 44-year age gap.
Melanie Hamrick, 37, spoke to The Sunday Times about her relationship with the 81-year-old Rolling Stones rocker, with whom she shares a child.
“I don’t think about it,” she said of their age gap. “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.”
She added, “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.”
Hamrick is an author and former ballerina who published her debut novel, “First Position,” last year. She and Jagger have been dating since 2014 and met at a Rolling Stones concert in Tokyo that year. Hamrick, who was 26 at the time, told The Sunday Times she wasn’t star-struck when they met.
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“Ballet dancers meet some of the biggest stars and act, like, ‘Who are you?” she said. “Because, to us, ballet dancers are the gods. That’s who you study and look up to. You’re so in your world.”
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In 2016, Jagger and Hamrick welcomed their first child together, a son named Deveraux. “I’m so love with my baby Deveraux Jagger 💙,” she wrote on Instagram at the time.
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Hamrick retired from American Ballet Theatre in 2019. “The schedule of A.B.T. is great, but it’s hard when you have a child and the life I have now,” she told The New York Times. “I feel like superwoman some days, and other days I feel like I’m head above water just phoning in being a dancer — coming to rehearsal and not being my best. That’s not fair. I love it. But sometimes my head is not there. And I’ve done enough ‘Swan Lakes.’ It’s OK.”
Speaking on the “Today” show last year, Hamrick said she and Jagger are both “very supportive of each other’s ventures and work,” adding that she is “not just someone’s partner.”
Jagger previously dated L’Wren Scott, a fashion designer, from 2001 until she died by suicide in 2014. He has seven other children from previous relationships.