Rod Stewart Reveals Why He Felt Getting Married At 34 Was 'Too Young'

Rod Stewart recently sat down with People magazine, and the rocker revealed why he felt as though getting married at 34 was still "too young." Stewart married his first wife, Alana Stewart, in 1979 when he was 34, and the rocker is now saying why he wasn't ready to settle down at the time.

"When I told my dad I was getting married, he said, 'You're far too young,'" Stewart said to People. "He was right. I still had a lot of living, partying, drinking and shagging to do."

Stewart divorced Alana just five years later in 1984, then got married again when he was 45 to model Rachel Hunter. However, that marriage didn't last, and the two divorced in 1999 after being together for nine years. Just a few days later, he met Penny Lancaster, who has been his wife since 2006.

"Rachel broke up with me on a Monday evening, and it was heartbreaking," Stewart said. "No one leaves Rod! [Laughs] But that Saturday night, I met Penny at the Dorchester hotel in London. The bass player in my band, Carmine, said, 'Listen, you've just come out of a long nine-year marriage. You're not ready yet.' I nearly strangled him!"

Stewart's confession that he was a ladies' man all throughout his first marriage comes as no surprise. Two years ago, Stewart revealed that he had joined antiwar protests in the 1960s to attract women. "We used to go to all the C.N.D. [Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament} marches," Stewart said on an episode of the BBC's Reel Stories. "I used to do it to get shagged. I didn't care about the war actually. It was just rebellion, that's all it was."