sundaymirror.co.uk
1 January 2006
EXCLUSIVE: ROD STEWART'S SECRET DAUGHTER
Sarah's pain at new snub
By Zoe Nauman
AS she gazes at the glossy pictures of Rod Stewart proudly cradling his new baby son, tears well up in Sarah Streeter's eyes.
She knows this is the kind of tender moment the singer never shared with her. What's more, Rod is proudly introducing Alastair Wallace as his SIXTH child.
And that's what hurts most.
Sarah, now 42, is the child Rod has airbrushed out of his life, the one he never mentions in public. She was the first of his SEVEN children, although she's rarely seen him since she was born in 1963.
Sarah knows she will only ever get to see her newborn half-brother in the pages of celebrity magazines and newspapers. "He forgets how many children he has in interviews," Sarah says. "It breaks my heart that I have a whole family out there who I will probably never get to meet."
Sarah was abandoned by the star when she was a few days old and didn't find out he was her father until she was 18. She has since tried to make contact with Rod and build up a relationship. Instead she has had to endure Rod joking in interviews that he wished she didn't exist. He was once quoted as saying: "You can count her if you want. I try not to."
Yet there is no mistaking Sarah is Rod's daughter. The likeness is uncanny... the same long nose and almond-shaped eyes.
Rod was an 18-year-old unknown musician when he met Sarah's mother, Susannah Boffey, then an art student, in Islington, North London. They had a year-long relationship - until Susannah fell pregnant. When Rod found out, Sarah says he wanted nothing more to do with her. "He told mum he didn't want her to have the baby, but mum was having none of it." She says Rod had to be dragged to the hospital to be at the birth by Susannah's friend Chrissie Shrimpton, later Mick Jagger's model girlfriend. "He sat outside the labour room with his head in his hands saying, 'What have I done?'"
Susannah, who was 17, struggled to look after her daughter on her own for seven months - before she was put in care. Rod never visited his newborn child.
SARAH was in a children's home until, aged four, she was adopted by Evelyn and Gerald Thubron. The identity of her real parents was kept from her until she was 18 when Evelyn broke the news.
"Of course I was amazed to discover my dad was Rod Stewart and couldn't believe it at first," she says. "But I decided I wanted to meet him. Now I wish I hadn't."
Sarah's adoptive brother Colin wrote to Stewart's record company on her behalf but all they got back was a signed photo.
In 1982 Sarah flew to LA to meet him. It had been set up by a journalist and Rod arrived, accompanied by a lawyer and his then wife Alana Hamilton. "It became clear he'd only agreed to meet me under pressure," says Sarah. "It was uncomfortable for both of us. My mum asked him if he might hug me but he didn't. I felt like a fan, not someone with blood ties."
Sarah and Rod have since had sporadic contact but now Sarah has given up on ever forming a long-term relationship with her father. "I never expected him to be a proper dad," she says. "But I had hoped we could have developed a friendship. More than anything I want him to acknowledge me, not talk in interviews about his six children. Now I know that is never going to happen. I have washed my hands of Rod Stewart."
Apart from Alastair, Rod's new baby with fiancee Penny Lancaster, his other children are Kimberley, 25, and Sean, 24, from his marriage to actress Alana; Ruby, 17, whose mother is model Kelly Emberg; and Renee, 12, and Liam, 10, from his marriage to Rachel Hunter. They have all enjoyed the trappings that come with being children of an international star with a £100m fortune. But Sarah had none of their lifestyle.
Although she loves her adopted parents, not knowing her real mother and father has had a huge impact on her life. "I was reunited with my real mother a few weeks after I met Rod for the first time in 1982," she says. "But now we do not speak. We're very different."
Sarah says she has had problems forming relationships and, after a series of "bad boyfriends", suffered depression and at one time had a drink problem - which she doesn't hold her father responsible for.
But she now works as a carer and lives with her husband Chris Streeter, 55, and her adoptive mother Evelyn in Uckfield, East Sussex. After the initial meeting Sarah contacted Rod again in LA and he arranged to meet her in London. They had lunch together with his new partner Kelly Emberg.
They stayed in touch for about a year and a half. She'd normally meet him backstage at concerts and even once joined him for a curry with her then-boyfriend. Afterwards he invited them back to his sprawling mansion in Epping, Essex for the night. She still treasures the bracelet Rod bought her for her 23rd birthday. "It was good during that time, but the conversation was always superficial and we never talked about my real mum or the past, which I understood was difficult for him," says Sarah. "It was always me who initiated the meetings and it was hurtful that I had to go through his secretary."
He spent a lot of time in LA and the contact petered out. On the few occasions she did meet him, she was never introduced to her half-brothers and sisters.
It was when he failed to attend her wedding to Chris in July 2004 that any hopes of a lasting relationship broke down. "I sent him an invite three months before," she says. "Then I got a call to say he couldn't make it as he had some concerts in the US. I was upset. I didn't want him to give me away or anything like that, however it would have been nice if he could have been there."
On her wedding day a huge bunch of lilies arrived with a card reading: "With love Rod and Penny." The singer had also sent £5,000 of Harrods' vouchers . "It was a very generous," says Sarah. "But it would have been nice if I had got a card with a personal message in it."
Rod's secretary had also promised that he would give Sarah a call on her big day and she was so desperate not to miss it that she even tried to put her mobile down the top of her wedding dress. "I carried it around with me all day, which was quite awkward, but I didn't get a call." She adds: "I haven't been able to bring myself to spend the vouchers. I don't want him to think that the only reason I'm interested in him is his money."
Sarah says Rod called last June, nearly a year after the wedding. He asked how married life was and suggested Sarah go and see him at a concert he was doing at Blenheim Palace. "He said all his other children were going to be there. I was very nervous but wanted to see them all." She went with Chris and her stepson Mark, 20, only to be refused entry because they didn't have the right pass. Eventually Rod's housekeeper recognised her and got her backstage - but only after the show had ended and Rod had left. "I was devastated," Sarah says. "It had been such a huge thing."
The last straw came during October and November when Rod was promoting his new album."He was on television all the time. On a couple of occasions when an interviewer said to him, 'So you will have six children with the new baby?' - he never told them they were wrong. It was like he had written me out of his life. I rang his secretary and told her: 'Tell him I never want to speak to him again'."
Since then Sarah has heard nothing: "All I wanted was for Rod to acknowledge me publicly when he talks about his children. I'm disappointed at not meeting my brothers and sisters or being able to give Alastair a cuddle."
Rod Stewart's secret daughter
She loves him!
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