1971 Row rocks Rolling Stone wedding

The Rolling Stones singer, Mick Jagger, has married his fiancée Bianca Pérez-Mora Macias at the town hall in the French Mediterranean town of St Tropez.

The civil ceremony was held up for almost an hour-and-a-half, after bitter arguments between Mr Jagger’s spokesman and the police over the number of reporters and photographers in the wedding chamber.

A pool of four photographers had been invited to the town hall, but as the time of the ceremony approached about 100 cameramen and other journalists packed the chamber.

At first, Mr Jagger refused to come to the town hall – the message which was delivered by his spokesman said he did not wish to get married in a “goldfish bowl”.

But the police insisted the media had the right to stay – and they, in turn, threatened to cancel the wedding unless the couple put in an appearance.

Mick Jagger and his Nicaraguan-born wife-to-be eventually arrived at 1700. Police and journalists exchanged blows in the frenzy.

Hippies turned up on foot and bicycles, mingling with members of the international jet set, who arrived in Rolls Royces for the wedding.

After the brief civil service, the couple left for the St Anne chapel for a religious ceremony.

Students gave the wedding party a noisy reception at the chapel. During the simple service, Father Lucien Baud recalled the groom had been born on St Anne’s day, which is why he had chosen to be married in her chapel. […]

Courtesy BBC News

In context

Mick Jagger met Bianca Pérez-Mora Macias at a party after a Rolling Stones’ concert where she apparently impressed him with her French. She had left Nicaragua to study political science in Paris.

When they married, she was already pregnant with their daughter, Jade. Eight years later they divorced. The ageing rocker is now grandfather to Jade’s children, Assisi and Amba.

He married the Texan model Jerry Hall in November 1990 in Bali after a 20-year courtship. They had four children – but after nine years of marriage, the relationship was annulled at the High Court in London on the grounds it was not valid under either English or Indonesian law.

Since her marriage ended, Bianca has become a campaigner for human rights, as well as on environmental issues. She moved to London when George Bush was elected president of the United States and has become an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq.