Surrounded by the golden sands and gentle waves of Malibu beach, Penny Lancaster is in her element. Walking barefoot as she takes in the beautiful coastline of southern California, this TV personality, mother and rock star's wife is the picture of contentment. "I always feel totally at home and relaxed in Malibu," she tells us in this exclusive interview and photoshoot. "It is so serene and relaxing, and there is a very calm energy." As she releases her long-awaited autobiography, Someone Like Me, the Essex-born photographer and former model is in a great place in her life.
Blissfully happy with her music icon husband of 18 years, Sir Rod Stewart, and their sons, Alastair, 19, and Aiden, 14, she adores her volunteer work as a special constable and the time she spends with the women she advocates for. Penny’s contentment is clear as she chats to HELLO!, although she has had to endure a rollercoaster ride to get to this happy place, as shown in her memoirs.
"I wanted to get across the message that, no matter where you are in life – we all have a sense of where we'd like to be – that path is never A-Z," she says. "It's never a straight line. We're always going to deviate and there are always going to be bumps in the road. I am an honest person and I wear my heart on my sleeve; if my journey has helped me, maybe it could help others."
Long-term love
That journey includes meeting and marrying Rod despite a couple of false starts, establishing a successful career as a photographer and in TV, welcoming her beloved boys and battling symptoms of menopause that affected her mental health. Penny, 54, is also still dealing with the after-effects of two sexual assaults she suffered when she was younger, and has learnt to navigate the dyslexia she has struggled with since she was a schoolgirl.
© Jonas Mohr 2025By her side as she blossomed into the woman she is today has been Rod, 80, who has always offered her total support and sage words of advice. "Maybe because he is 26 years older than me and has had a life that most haven't – he is worldly and has travelled and met so many people – I could draw from that and trust that his advice is coming not only from a good place, but also from experience," she tells us. Rod's unwavering faith in his wife helped Penny navigate overnight fame when they began dating in 1999. More recently, he did not want to read any early proofs of his wife's autobiography because he wanted to relish being able to "hold the real thing" when it was released.
Together for more than 25 years, the couple make sure they spend plenty of quality time together and cherish their relationship. "I think the key is to continually be making the effort – and it will be a journey," Penny tells HELLO! of the secret to their long-lasting love. "It's not as if 'we're there' and we've sewed it up; it's a process, a daily and weekly consideration. We're still learning, but I think you must always pay attention and check in with one another. At the beginning of a relationship, you want to show your best self, but then you get married and have kids and forget how important it was at the beginning to try to be the best person you can be."
© Jonas Mohr 2025I am an honest person and I wear my heart on my sleeve; if my journey has helped me, maybe it could help others.
She continues: "We like to get dressed up for a night out. If we're meeting friends, we often stop somewhere first and have a drink, just the two of us, so we can have a little moment together. We also have 'date coffees' or 'date dog walks', where we'll sit on a bench and just have a moment. We’ll leave the phones indoors and find little pockets of time."
© Jonas Mohr 2025Constant support
Rod's support is a constant throughout the book, with Penny describing how he helped her through a crisis in confidence, due to her then-undiagnosed dyslexia, when she was asked to deliver her first speech for an RNIB charity fundraiser in 2004. "I went a bit numb," she recalls. "It took me back to standing up in class and having to read in front of everyone. I thought: ‘I'm going to stumble over my words and stutter and then I won't be able to read and I'll run off in a mess.’ Rod said to me: 'Darling, you're great with people; it’s an ability you have that you can't teach someone. They will see how genuine you are.' And he went through the script with me and helped me work through it."
© Jonas Mohr 2025While writing her book, Rod encouraged her to "throw everything out there" for readers to discover. "There were lots of giggles and fond memories, and then there were tears and moments when I thought, 'I don't think I can carry on with this book, it's too much', or 'Am I going too far?' I forged through and it certainly felt like a therapy session at some points." The memoir also shows Penny's unwavering belief in herself, which was drummed into her at a young age by her beloved parents, Sally and Graham – whom she refers to as her "north star" in the pages – and which helped her rise above childhood bullying.
It's not as if 'we're there' and we've sewed it up; it's a process, a daily and weekly consideration. We're still learning, but I think you must always pay attention and check in with one another.
© Jonas Mohr 2025"The lesson my mum gave me is that, when people are expecting you to be something you're not, you must never change, and always be true to yourself. She would say, 'You go high, they go low; stay your ground and be proud of who you are.'" Her parents also instilled a love of charity work that has resulted in Penny working with organisations including the King’s Foundation (for which she and Rod are ambassadors), the British Dyslexia Association and Wellbeing of Women.
So close is she to her parents that she knew Rod was The One only after he met her father for the first time, she tells us. "He wanted to meet my parents and I thought it could be really awkward because they were the same age as him," she recalls. "My father had been through the mill with me and boyfriends during my teenage years – he always put that down to one of the reasons he went grey – and then suddenly there's this rock star…
© Jonas Mohr 2025"We were arranging a dinner with my dad, who was a lawyer, so Rod wanted to be respectful and drop the rock’n’roll look, turning up in a double-breasted suit. My father thought: 'Right, rock star,' so he dropped his suit and turned up in a leather jacket! They were both equally nervous, but they got on like a house on fire. It meant a lot and that’s when I thought Rod was the one for me."
Someone Like Me by Penny Lancaster is out now, published by Bloomsbury, priced £20.
To read the full exclusive interview, pick up the latest issue of HELLO! on sale in the UK on Monday. You can subscribe to HELLO! to get the magazine delivered free to your door every week or purchase the digital edition online via our Apple or Google apps.
