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Tuesday September 18, 2007

Eighteen months ago Status Quo star Rick Parfitt was on a downward spiral, depressed and drinking half a bottle of vodka a day. Then he met new wife and ‘lifesaver’ Lyndsay Whitburn and within months the couple had married in secret.

The 57-year-old multi-million selling artist was living alone in his riverside apartment spending most days slumped in front of the television. He had already had a quadruple heart bypass in 1997 and throat surgery in December 2005. “I felt it was all over for me.” Rick told Hello! magazine. “I was lonely and didn’t even like leaving my apartment because I was in such a sorry state.”

“I was so low I’d wake up in the morning, switch on the telly and still find myself slumped there at 3pm. I was lost. I started to fear going out, even to the local shops, and would disguise myself so I wasn’t recognised.” He added: “I had no confidence, no self-esteem and often didn’t bother getting dressed.”

Rick first met beauty salon owner Lyndsay, herself twice divorced, at the local gym but says he was too shy to talk to her. He recalls: “I didn’t notice her sweaty hair, or any of that stuff, I just saw this vision of loveliness.”

After seeking advice from his Auntie Dot Rick returned to the gym the following day and asked to be introduced to Lyndsay by their shared personal trainer. “I felt like a tongue-tied schoolboy” said Rick, “I somehow just new she was special.”

After inviting her on a date to watch his musician son Richard play at the Café de Paris Rick attempted to impress Lyndsay by taking her home in his Bentley. He told her: “You’re coming home with me, you’ve pulled!”

Despite his previous two marriages, Rick insists this is the first time he has ever been in love: “I felt something really powerful and warm that I’d never felt before. It was like being a boy again and I was incredibly nervous.” “Something rushed over me, like butterflies in my stomach, and my life changed there and then.”

He maintains it was Lyndsay that turned things around for him. “I started dressing smartly again, went to the gym three times a week, cut down on drinking and felt good about myself.”

Rick swore he’d never wed again after paying out more than £3million in divorce settlements to ex-wives Patty and Marietta but couldn’t help popping the question to Lyndsay. “It was a good day, because I had a Lamborghini arriving, and was excited” he remembers. “We sat on the terrace of the hotel and suddenly I just said, ‘Shall we get engaged?’ I had no doubts whatsoever. Lyndsay accepted, and said she’d be proud to be my wife and later that day we went to a jeweller and chose her diamond ring together.”

The couple wanted to get married quickly and privately because Lyndsay wasn’t used to a media circus so they wed in a £46 registry office ceremony in Gibraltar – the same place John Lennon and Yoko Ono married. They spent their honeymoon in their five-bedroom Spanish villa and have lived there ever since.

Rick said: “For the first time in my life, I feel like a man. I feel responsible and I love it. She compliments me and makes me feel special and I’ve never had that before.”

“We took a chance and got married, in truth we hardly know each other, but you can’t get a more powerful feeling than real love and ours just grows stronger each day.”

Lyndsay added: “I didn’t know who he was at first. I thought Status Quo had disbanded years ago.”

“His past didn’t bother me, even when I learned about it, because I sensed he wanted something more, was seeking to move on. Above all else I loved Rick for his kindness, his sensitivity. I almost instantly knew I’d met my soulmate.”

She added: “I don’t even mind picking up his clothes when he leaves them all over the floor – I enjoy looking after him, but he also looks after me. He’s a fantastic cook, especially roasts, so I’m spoiled rotten and feel privileged that I don’t have to work, because he doesn’t want me to. He sings to me, when we have friends over, and has even written a song for me called Miss Lyndsay. I was exceptionally touched.”

The full interview appears in this week’s Hello! Magazine, out today (Tuesday)