'If it happened now, Bill would go to jail.' Mandy Smith on the Rolling Stone who seduced her at the age of 13

By ANTONIA HOYLE, MAIL ON SUNDAY FEATURE WRITER
Updated: 08:01 EST, 3 June 2009

It was a photograph notable only for its utter normality: a mother taking her son – and his cello – to school, dressed for comfort and looking fraught.

Yet when the picture was printed in a newspaper earlier this month, it caused something of a stir. For the figure in the black jacket and flat sandals was Mandy Smith, a woman rarely associated with conformity, let alone domesticity.

Mandy was the 13-year-old girl who found notoriety when she was seduced by Rolling Stones bass player Bill Wyman in 1984. 

Child bride: Mandy Smith admits she made mistakes. 'But I was 13,' she says. The former model has since found solace in religion

For two years, their relationship remained a closely guarded secret. But when it was made public, it became the biggest show-business scandal of the decade.

Wyman, 34 years older than Mandy, was accused of everything from exploitation to rape. She was portrayed as both a victim of sexual abuse and a temptress; a wild-child Lolita whose thirst for fame and money exceeded any sense of morality.

And her mother Patsy, who condoned their unlikely relationship, was painted as a manipulative parent prepared to hustle her young daughters for her own social gain.

Left largely to her own devices, Mandy, who grew up in a council house in North London,first met Wyman while she was partying in a nightclub with her older sister Nicola.

Despite her tender years she already possessed both the body and the beauty of a grown woman. Defying the national outcry, the pair went on to marry in 1989. But separation followed just weeks later, after Wyman admitted being unfaithful.

It is no secret that Mandy, still a teenager trying to make a name for herself as a fashion model and fledgling pop star, struggled to cope with the ordeal and the aftermath.

Over the next decade, the effects were little short of catastrophic. She developed a mysterious wasting disease, her weight dropping to a skeletal five-and-a-half stone.

Normal mum: Mandy was recently pictured for the first time in a decade, carrying her son's cello to school

Later she endured a destructive two-year marriage to Pat van den Hauwe, a footballer ten years older than her.

Still traumatised, she moved on to model Ian Mosby, a man her own age, for once, but they split up a year after their son Max, now eight, was born.

It is no wonder that Mandy, now 38, has made a conscious decision to both stay single and to withdraw from the celebrity status that consumed so many of her earlier years.

So seeing herself in that newspaper picture last month was as much of a surprise to her as anyone else.

Speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday, she says: ‘I had mixed emotions. Part of me thought, “Oh no, not again.”

'But then I thought, no, I’m not sensitive about things now. I’ve moved on. Over the past year I’ve finally become comfortable with who I am. I’m not bothered by what people think.’

The Mandy talking today couldn’t be further removed from the woman once named ‘Rear of the Year’ and pictured at London’s glitziest nightspots.

The vacuous, celebrity-driven aspects of her life have completely gone. She shares a two-bedroom flat in Manchester with her older sister and drives a modest VW Polo.

Her clothes are from the High Street and she is more likely to be seen in Sainsbury’s or at the library than on a red carpet or a catwalk.

She moved out of London for the first time in her life last August, to start a new life with Nicola in what she describes as the ‘friendlier’ environment of Manchester.

When she’s not busy setting up kisspr.net, the website for Kiss PR, the public relations company the sisters run, she revels in housework and the company of her Yorkshire terrier, Buzz.

In spare time not spent with Max, she immerses herself in charity work. She has never been happier and is able to view her past with a stringent new clarity.

‘In the past I was spoilt,’ she admits. ‘I’ve had nice houses, cars and jewellery. But it doesn’t make you happier and money has never been my god.

‘I have enough to live on and don’t want to be part of the celebrity world any more. I have worked hard to feel good about myself. I feel I have a real purpose.’

There is a further, rather extraordinary, explanation for her peace of mind: Mandy has become a practising Roman Catholic.

She takes her son to church every Sunday, attends mass twice a week and prays every day.

She says her faith began in 2005, when she joined a group of friends in Medjugorje, the Croatian shrine that has drawn Catholic pilgrims in their millions since 1981, when a group of local children claimed to have had visions of the Virgin Mary.

‘Something clicked,’ says Mandy. ‘Things kept happening that I can’t explain. We were having dinner when an image of Mary appeared on a white tablecloth 10ft away. We all saw it – everyone in the room.

‘I was brought up a Catholic but my mum was too ill to take us to church. I knew I had to get back on that path.

Rock 'n' roll royalty: Mandy was 18 when she married Bill in Bayswater

‘My faith has definitely helped me. I treat God as the one I have to ask for guidance. I chat to him every day and he is actually like the man in my life. I was always scared, but I’m not as fearful any more.’

She is surprisingly forgiving towards the rock star ex-husband who could have ruined her life, saying: ‘People aren’t as protective of celebrities nowadays and if this had happened recently I think Bill would have ended up in prison.

'I can’t think of it as child abuse. If I did I wouldn’t have been able to move on. But I’m reminded of it on a regular basis.

'Things I hear on TV about young girls, different scenarios with older men, rape... But he fell in love with me so I can’t look at it as sordid or wrong.’

There is a steeliness behind Mandy’s softly spoken sentences. But it is tempered with an endearing fragility.

She is an intriguing amalgamation, at once all-knowing and innocent, a woman who realises she’s been wronged and a girl reluctant to believe in wrong.

Her trademark blond locks are newly dyed brunette, the physical manifestation of her desire for a fresh start. Yet the chiselled cheek bones, doe-eyes and alluring pout are unmistakably those that lured Wyman 25 years ago.

The end: Shortly after the ceremony, Bill went back on tour. The pair separated months later, and divorced in 1991

Mandy’s father John, a snooker-hall manager, walked out on Patsy when Mandy was three and she brought up the girls alone. By the time Mandy met Wyman, the sisters were frequenting nightclubs, wearing make-up and smoking Silk Cut.

It was Mandy’s sense of fun and ability to hold her own that attracted Wyman, by then divorced from his first wife, bank clerk Diane Cory.

The day after he met the sisters, he took them out for lunch and told Nicola he was ‘totally in love’ with Mandy.

What started out as a friendship developed into a sexual love affair, conducted largely at Wyman’s sprawling Suffolk country home and for two years it was kept within the confines of Wyman’s close circle.

‘His friends respected him enough not to say anything,’ she says. ‘I felt too guilty to tell anyone. I loved the fact he loved me and he filled a void that my father’s absence had caused.

'It was a mistake, but looking back it was inevitable. Naively, I didn’t think it was a big deal,’ says Mandy.

She admits she would not have chosen to lose her virginity at such a young age but says: ‘I went along with it because I thought I’d lose him if I didn’t. People said I knew what I was doing but I didn’t.’

When their relationship was leaked to the media, Mandy was completely unprepared for the furore.

She was interviewed by Scotland Yard – she refused to press abuse charges – and found herself dubbed the ‘wild child’ on the tabloid front pages for months on end.

But despite the unwelcome attention, and a brief split, they married in 1989, aged 18 and 52, surrounded by rock ‘royalty’.

‘It was almost as if we’d had to marry to make sense of the affair,’ says Mandy. ‘The wedding day is a bit of a blur now. It doesn’t feel it was me.’

Soon after they married, Wyman went away on tour and, when he came back, Mandy felt unable to continue their physical relationship.

It was as if the ceremony had finally made her realise the whole thing was wrong. After the wedding they made love just twice.

They separated weeks later, and divorced in 1991. Wyman’s infidelity cemented her mistrust of men.

‘It goes back to my dad,’ she believes. ‘I always chose destructive relationships and what happened with Bill made it even harder for me to trust men.’

After a failed attempt at pop stardom, Mandy returned to modelling. But her health, exacerbated by the break-up, rapidly deteriorated.

Wild Child: Mandy pictured backstage before a modelling show in 1987

Mandy – who is now a teetotal vegan and slim, though no longer skeletal – believes her dramatic weight loss was the result of both an inadequate digestive system and a faulty thyroid. But the general perception was that she was anorexic.

‘I wanted to eat,’ she insists. ‘I just couldn’t without being ill. People would gasp at how thin I was.’

It was only as she descended into the depths of her illness that she started to come to terms with her relationship with Wyman. ‘While it was happening, I didn’t have time to think or feel.

‘But when I was really ill I had so much time on my hands. I grew angry with Bill, my mum, the fact I’d been living in a goldfish bowl. I still had a sensitive side but I became harder, less tolerant and tough.’

Her anger at Wyman – who maintains he behaved ‘honourably’ – was directed more at the way he behaved after their relationship ended than during it.

‘I made mistakes but I was 13,’ she says. ‘He didn’t take responsibility for his actions. If he’d had the guts to take some of the flak and stick up for me people would have respected him.’

She says Patsy and Nicola, who moved into the four-bedroom North London home she bought with her £580,000 divorce settlement, bore the brunt of her rage.

‘They were always looking after me. I was a diva if things weren’t done right,’ she admits. ‘I didn’t realise until fairly recently the impact my behaviour had on my sister, who supported me throughout.’

Meanwhile, in a surreal twist, Patsy, then 51, embarked on a relationship with Wyman’s 24-year-old son that was to last until 1994.

‘It was like something out of a novel,’ Mandy laughs. ‘At the time it was strange but she’d been so ill that I was happy for her.’

A year earlier, Mandy married Pat van den Hauwe. Two tempestuous years followed. In a newspaper interview he accused Mandy of withholding sex and driving him to drink, and her mother and sister of crowding their relationship.

She believes their marriage was volatile and that he shared the blame.

Mandy met Ian in a nightclub in 1999. Six months later she became pregnant. But they split up when Max was one and Ian is no longer in contact.

‘I make sure Max has plenty of male role models,’ says Mandy. ‘When I had him Mum realised I could look after myself. She respected me more and it was good for all of us. We’ve come full circle now.’

She has been celibate since she broke up with Ian in 2002.

‘I can’t imagine having sex with someone I don’t like. I’ve been on my own for so long I know what I want,’ she says. ‘I’ve had a few dates but the chemistry hasn’t been right and I’ve learned it’s better to wait.

‘I’ll never go for another chaotic relationship again. I do feel ready for a partnership, although it would take a lot for me to marry again. And because of my faith I don’t know if I would have sex before marriage.’

Mandy clearly dotes on Max. ‘He’s doing some modelling for children’s clothes and loves Manchester United and Irish dancing,’ she says. ‘I’m here to love, guide and teach him.’

One of his friends recently told him his mother had been married to a Rolling Stone.

‘He didn’t know who they were,’ she says. ‘It was only when he found their music on his Guitar Heroes computer game that he realised. Now he plays Paint It Black to me and says, “Mum, this is your song.”’

Mandy works hard on her mental and emotional balance. She says counselling has helped and she has trained to work with Home Start, a charity that supports vulnerableone-parent families.

‘I’ve always been a helper and a giver,’ she says. ‘But now I want to put it into action. Otherwise what’s the point in being here?’

She believes her health has improved thanks to regular sessions of ‘alternative’ therapy with Manchester-based Fiona Slatter, whose Body Energy treatments (www.body-energy.co.uk) involve placing suction pads at strategic points around the body.

‘It’s like acupuncture but non-invasive,’ she says. ‘I was sceptical at first, but it makes me feel amazing.’

Her anger towards Wyman, who has since married American fashion designer Suzanne Accosta, with whom he has three daughters, has dissipated.

‘To move on you’ve got to forgive,’ she says.

‘I wouldn’t want him charged, there wouldn’t be any point. It wouldn’t prove anything and I don’t want to interfere in his life.

‘Plus,’ she adds, the steeliness back in her eyes, ‘he’s got young children now. One is the age I was when we met – which can’t be easy for him.’