Personal Life
Several of the women Ferry had been involved with have appeared as cover models on the Roxy Music albums. Ferry dated the French singer and model Amanda Lear, who was photographed with a black jaguar for the cover of the For Your Pleasure album. She later went on to date David Bowie.
Ferry then began a relationship with model Jerry Hall. Ferry first met Hall when she posed for the Roxy Music album cover for Siren in Wales during the summer 1975. Hall's autobiography Tall Tales (1985) describes the photo session, and she elaborates on how the blue body paint she wore to look like a mythical siren would not wash off; Hall says that Ferry took her back to his house, claiming he would help her to remove the paint. Her stay at Ferry's Holland Park (London) home, following the album cover photo shoot, marked the start of their affair. Hall and Ferry lived together, sharing homes in London and in the ritzy Bel Air district of Los Angeles, and Hall also appeared in some of Ferry's music videos, including "Let's Stick Together" and "The Price of Love" (both 1976). Their relationship ended when she left him for Mick Jagger in late 1977. To this day, Ferry rarely speaks about Hall, but fans often speculate that his song "Kiss and Tell" from the Bête Noire album (1987) was Ferry's response to Hall's tell-all book about their relationship published a couple of years earlier. Additionally, Ferry's 1978 solo album The Bride Stripped Bare is widely believed to contain allusions to his break-up with Hall - particularly the song "When She Walks in the Room". Ferry's original songs on the album were in fact written some time before the relationship ended, although it was recorded afterwards.
On 26 June 1982 Ferry married London socialite and model Lucy Helmore (14 years his junior), who had become pregnant with their child Otis (b. 1 November 1982). Although her face is not seen, Helmore was the model on the front cover of Roxy Music's 1982 album Avalon, released a month before their wedding. The couple went on to have three more sons, Isaac, Tara and Merlin. After they married, Helmore helped Ferry to kick a cocaine habit, and she herself attended Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous in the mid-1990s.
In recent years Otis Ferry has become known in the British media for his pro-hunting political activities. He has been arrested and charged several times for activities relating to hunting, one of which led to a conviction. Otis' most famous activist stunt was to break into the chambers of The House of Commons during a protest against the ban on hunting. Otis is also a joint master of the South Shropshire hunt. Ferry's second son, Isaac, was suspended from Eton College for sending abusive e-mails to an anti-hunting campaigner. By 2008, Tara was performing in a rock band called Rubber Kiss Goodbye and was about to start studying at the Chelsea College of Art and Design. By 2008, Merlin was studying for "A" Levels at Marlborough College, and now plays guitar in his band Voltorb. Ferry's children have also contributed to his 2010 album Olympia. Tara played drums on several tracks, Merlin played guitar on one track, and Isaac was the producer of the album's artwork. Tara also toured with Ferry (and Roxy Music) on the band's 2011 For Your Pleasure tour, performing additional drums.
In 2000 the whole Ferry family were on a British Airways flight to Nairobi when a deranged passenger forced his way into the cockpit, attacked the pilot and caused the plane to lurch downward. Maintaining his composure in a frantic situation, Ferry took the time to berate one of his sons for using bad language during the incident. A crash was prevented when the assailant was eventually overcome.
Ferry and Helmore split in the early 2000s following an affair she had, and they divorced in 2003. After their separation, British newspapers photographed Ferry with Katie Turner, 35 years his junior, naming her as his new 'girlfriend'. Ferry and Turner met while she worked as one of the dancers on Roxy Music's concert tour in 2001 (and is featured on the DVD of the 2001 Hammersmith Odeon Show). She went on to appear with Ferry on several TV shows to promote the Frantic album, and also performed on the Frantic tour in 2002. After their break-up, Ferry had a relationship with British socialite Lady Emily Compton. In 2006 he resumed his relationship with Katie Turner for some time.
Ferry began a relationship with Amanda Sheppard, one of his son's ex-girlfriends. Sheppard worked in public relations until she quit her job in 2009 after Ferry offered to support her financially. In early January 2012, Ferry married Sheppard in a private ceremony on the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Ferry was estimated to have a fortune of £30 million in the Sunday Times Rich List of 2010.
Read more about this topic: Bryan Ferry
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