'I recycled myself after Ronnie left'

You have to hand it to Jo Wood. Almost a year ago, she became suddenly single after her rocker hubby traded her in for a teenage blonde. But she didn't buckle, oh no. Instead she reinvented herself.

"I've been through a hellish time," Jo admits, as she sits down for a glug of water halfway through our photo shoot. "But even at my very, very lowest, I knew inside that I wouldn't allow myself to be tossed aside."

When Jo, 53, discovered her husband Ronnie, Rolling Stones guitarist and legendary hell-raiser, was having an affair with a Russian cocktail waitress, most people expected him to beg his glamorous wife for a second chance. But Ronnie chose to stay with 20-year-old Ekaterina Ivanova - who looks uncannily like a younger version of his wife.

Jo was devastated, but she's not bitter. "I wasn't going to be broken by my marriage falling apart," she says firmly. "When things get rough, Jo gets going. I picked myself up and recycled myself for a whole new life - and the truth is, I think I'm happier now than I ever was before."

She's not kidding. After spending years as Ronnie's wife and full-time carer - he's had a well-documented battle with alcoholism - she's now relishing having some 'me' time.

Jo keeps us entertained, giggling about nights out on the town and dancing till dawn with her friends, who make up much of London's A-list celeb set.

Her chatter jumps randomly from drinking cocktails with Kate Moss to sharing a bed with fellow Rolling Stone Keith Richards ("He fell asleep on mine and Ronnie's bed when we first got together"). Then, in the next breath, she's waxing lyrical about drawing pictures with her grandson on Bring Your Grandparents To School Day.

As Jo pours herself into another outfit, it's clear that Fabulous couldn't have picked a better cover star for our eco issue. She still dares to go out in a see-through dress ("I didn't notice till I saw the pictures, and then I thought: 'Ooh my hair looks nice!'"), flirts with hunky 37-year-old Paul Sculfor - ex-squeeze of Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Aniston - and got the biggest cheer when she strutted her stuff at Naomi Campbell's charity fashion show during London Fashion Week last September. But best of all, Jo is the ultimate green goddess. She lives, breathes and champions all things organic.

A grandmother of six, Jo manages to look unbelievably youthful (and take it from us, there are absolutely no signs of surgery - and we looked very, very hard). She's also honest, passionate, clever and cool.

"Going organic is sexy and fun!"

"There's no point in detoxing if you don't let yourself re-tox once in a while," she says, her eyes sparkling. "Go out and party. Just get up the next day and eat well, sleep and be good to your body.

"Going organic isn't about wearing sackcloth and ashes and eating porridge. It's sexy, it's fun, it's about feeling better about yourself and about your life."

Jo admits that after her split from Ronnie she had more than a few down days.

"I don't think I'd have had the strength to cope with what happened if I didn't feel so good on the inside," she says.

But Jo hasn't always been so clean living. A former model, she married Ronnie 24 years ago and they were together for over 30 years. She went on the road and partied hard, as well as raising Ronnie's son Jesse, now 32 (from his first marriage) and her son, Jamie, 34 (from her first). Together they have two children, Leah, 29, and Tyrone, 24. Has she led a charmed existence?

"Oh, I've had a pretty amazing life," she nods with a wicked grin. "I partied, I took lots of drugs and I always had a pretty good time. I had a couple of nosebleeds along the way, but that was it. I never took heroin or anything that controlled me. I had my fun because that was all part of the lifestyle."

But that stopped in the late '80s when Jo was told she had Crohn's disease, an inflammatory condition of the intestines.

"The pills I was prescribed took my soul away," she recalls. "I was tired, bloated and I felt like I was dying."

Then Jo met a herbalist who changed how she viewed her body - and then changed her life.

Jo and pal Kate Moss

"Back then, I was eating ready meals and fast food," she says. "This herbalist told me that was my problem, and explained the damaging effects eating processed foods, fats and sugars were having on my body and my health. And that was it - I went organic. I came off the steroids and it turned out that I'd never had Crohn's at all. I had a perforated appendix, which was then fixed in an operation. My body was just in a complete state because of the way I was living."

Jo also used her new-found organic passion to keep her then-husband healthy.

"I'd go on the road with Ronnie and take a little camping cooker to make him organic meals," she says. "That way, I knew that whatever he was doing to himself drinking, at least he had some proper nutrition inside him. For most of my life, everything revolved around looking after Ronnie."

That was until he met Ekaterina Ivanova in July 2008 - and abruptly ended his marriage.

"It was horrendous," Jo says calmly. "For the first few weeks I was in a total state. I didn't know what to do - I was just crying and I couldn't believe what had happened.

"I'm not in love with Ronnie, I'm in love with life"

"It was my friends and family - including Ronnie's son Jesse - who surrounded me and got me through. There were some people who didn't call because they didn't know what to say, but my real friends were right there. Jerry Hall [Mick Jagger's ex] just turned up and put her arms around me. That meant everything. She knew what I was going through. Kate Moss, Tracey Emin and Fran Cutler were all incredible too.

"Kate's advice was just to get out there - put on a fantastic dress, go out and have fun." Jo pauses and grins. "You know what? That was great advice. Even though you feel like it, you can't hide away. It's not the end of the world. It's just the end of part of your life. You have to work out who you are as you, not who you were as someone else's partner. It really is your life beginning again."

Jo looks like someone who is loving and living life. She never stops smiling and her mobile doesn't stop ringing. She has various projects on the go, including a pop-up restaurant in her own home in south-west London (serving home-grown organic food, with recycled tableware made by Colin Firth's wife and linen tablecloths made by Jo's mum); a cruelty-free, organic beauty range called Jo Wood Organics (Kate Moss adores her Langa Exfoliating Salt Scrub); and a visit to Bangladesh as the face of ethical clothing company People Tree. You have to wonder where her energy comes from.

"A year on, I have to say that my marriage ending was definitely for the best," she says. "I've learnt a lot about myself. I was engaged at 17, married at 18 and giving birth at 19. I was divorced by 20, met Ronnie at 21 and was pregnant with Leah at 22. I've never really known what it's like to have a single life until now, and even though I'm older, I don't care.

"I'm working harder than ever and I'm enjoying myself. I'm doing things that I never did when I was with Ronnie. The other night, I went out with gorgeous club promoter, Michael Evans. We went dancing and then had breakfast in the early hours of the morning. It was fun. I enjoyed myself. Everything I'm doing feels like a new adventure. I get asked out all the time and instead of saying 'No' I say 'Yes'. It's my new mantra. Say yes, meet new people, change your life.

"I didn't go out that much with Ronnie. I was in most nights making his dinner and worrying about him all the time. Now all that's gone. I only have myself to think about and I don't worry. I just enjoy."

So, any new men on the scene? Jo shakes her head.

Jo with children Tyrone and Leah

"I've been on dates but I'm just exploring. What I'm really enjoying is the attention I'm getting. It's nice to get compliments. The other day, a man asked me how it felt to walk into a room knowing that all the men fancied you. It took me a few minutes to get over the shock that he was talking about me!"

And she lets out a huge laugh. She returns once more to the subject of Ronnie. Just a few weeks ago, their daughter Leah gave birth to a baby girl, Maggie May. It was a moment of togetherness for the former couple.

"We still speak," she says. "And I still love Ronnie. I always will. He's a huge part of my life, he's an amazingly talented man and I've loved him for a very long time. But I'm not in love with him any more.

"He's my friend and always will be. He's the father of my kids and grandfather of my grandkids.

"But things have moved on. He's moved on, I've moved on and I'm happier. I'm loving being single. I'm in love with life."

Jo Wood Organics is sold nationwide at House of Fraser and at Jowoodorganics.com.

Win a Jo Wood hamper and get 20% off Jo Wood Organics

ATTENTION LADIES!

JO ON GOING GREEN...

• Recycle clothes (I'm still wearing dresses from the '70s) and when they wear out, use them as cloths and dusters.

• Only eat organic food - it's better for the environment and your body.

• Buy furniture and crockery from junk shops. I'm making cake plates for my restaurant out of old teacups glued to plates - they're gorgeous!

• Turn over part of your garden to growing vegetables or put herbs in a window box.

• Buy a water butt for the garden to utilise rainwater.

• Use organic cotton. A quarter of the world's insecticides are used to grow cotton.
  
  

SO JO, HAVE YOU EVER...

Checked messages on a partner's phone? Yes, I have. It was a shock, but I'm glad I did because that's how I found out about Ronnie cheating.

Been arrested? Yes. Ronnie and I were thrown in jail for six days and six nights on a drugs charge in 1980 in the Caribbean. It wasn't nice, but it was very rock 'n' roll.

Told someone they looked great in an outfit they looked horrendous in? Absolutely never. You're not a true friend to anyone if you do that. I would always tell a friend the truth because I'd hate them to be criticised.

Googled an ex-boyfriend? I did that the other day. He's an artist living in Bali - but that's a long way to travel!

Said: 'It's not you, it's me'? Not yet, but this is the sort of line I'm planning to learn to say over the next year or so!

Fancied a friend's boyfriend? No. That's not my style.

Gone commando? Totally! Everyone should do it at some point. But no one has ever known...

Been mistaken for another celebrity? Goldie Hawn. I take it as a compliment, even though she's older than me. I think she's lovely and a very funny lady.

Said: 'Don't you know who I am?' I would never do that. When you're married to a rock star, you become used to being number two and you don't expect number one treatment. You learn to lose your ego. I can't bear it when people behave like that.

Passed off packet food as your own? That's probably one of the worst things I could ever be accused of! I don't do packets of food. I'm completely against all that. If you come round to my house, my preparations for making a meal are putting on a pair of wellies, walking out into the garden and pulling up the vegetables myself.

JO WEARS (TOP PHOTO): SHRUG, REEM; VEST, KATHERINE HAMNETT; LEGGINGS, BLLACK NOIR AT HARVEY NICHOLS; SHOES, HER OWN. (MIDDLE PHOTO) JACKET, BEYOND RETRO; T-SHIRT, PEOPLE TREE AT ASOS; LEGGINGS, BLLACK NOIR AT HARVEY NICHOLS; SHOES, HER OWN. FINAL PHOTO: JO WEARS JUMPER, BEYOND RETRO

PHOTOGRAPHY: WENN, GETTY, XPOSURE HAIR: GUY KREMER USING L'OREAL PROFESSIONEL TECNI.ART MAKE-UP: AIMEE ADAMS AT SOHO MANAGEMENT USING ORGANIC GLAM STYLING: TRACEY LEA SAYER

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