Stella 13 June 2021

In advance of Yasmin’s interview during Stella Live on 19 June 2021 (which is being held virtually this year, and you can get a ticket to the online event here), she is on the cover and photographed inside of the 13 June 2021 issue of Stella, which is issued free with the Sunday edition of the Telegraph.

She was interviewed inside her bustling London home where, in her usual self-effacing style, she shares some bits about her life, her career, surviving the COVID lockdown, and hitting the odd-side of her 50s:

“From the youngest age I wanted to be another person – much more patient, tolerant and open-minded. My father was so unmaterialistic… I couldn’t ever allow myself to be part of a privileged ghetto. I can’t let go of my father’s example.”

“[I won’t wear miniskirts] with bare legs, though, not any more. Apart from that, there aren’t many rules. The only thing I can’t do now I’m 56 is granny chic. A Chanel jacket looks great on a 20-something, but you can’t do ironic granny style when you are a granny.”

Who’d have thought that the impulsive marriage back in 1985 between the flamboyant pop star and the doe-eyed 21-year-old model he’d spotted on the cover of a magazine would prove to be a rock of ages? The bride wore Benetton because it was the only store open that morning, and received a £30 wedding ring that she has since tried repeatedly to lose, “but it always makes its way back to me.”

Yasmin took the girls everywhere, including on tour with Duran Duran. “I was pretty strict. We had to be. I said, ‘Look, if you’re going to come to all these nice places, you have to behave.'”

“The hardest thing about marriage,” she says, “isn’t the rows, it’s the indifference. Luckily Simon makes me laugh, a lot.” That doesn’t mean being together for so long during lockdown was easy. “He really is mad sometimes. He likes to provoke, whereas I sometimes worry about the tone I used to say hello to someone 30 years ago.”

She jokes that she’s fantasised about killing him over the years. “A lot. He’s horrified by the many methods I’ve imagined.”

Photographer: Adam Whitehead
Fashion Director: Sophie Warburton
Makeup: Wendy Rowe
Hairstylist: Liz Taw
Photography Director: Krishna Sheth & Naomi McCullen