When Simon Le Bon got married in 1985 nobody expected him to win any prizes for husband of the year.
A self-confessed playboy, lover of the ladies and pop star pin-up in his heyday, the lead singer of Duran Duran, along with his four bandmates, had half the female population of the world hanging on their every word.
Not short of options, he was bombarded with offers, proposals. To put it bluntly, he was fighting women off with a stick.
So you can imagine my surprise when the results of a mini poll among a bunch of, how do I put this politely, a more mature group of fabulous women, requested Le Bon answer one question almost unanimously: What's the recipe for a successful marriage?
It was a question which clearly tickled Le Bon, who laughed loudly before answering without a second thought. "You have to want to be married," he said. "It's actually as simple as that."
And it's no wonder, as his laughter would suggest, Simon Le Bon is a happy man.
His band Duran Duran have sold 80 million records, he is the proud father of three beautiful daughters and is blissfully happy with his model wife — Yasmin — who frankly looks just as good as she did when they met almost three decades ago.
"These days I think people give up too easily. That's just bull***t" he said over the phone from the UK.
This year Le Bon and Yasmin will celebrate 27 years of marriage, something many people thought would never happen.
Le Bon famously spotted Yasmin on the cover of a magazine in 1984 and fell for her instantly. He called the agency until they finally set up a date and love blossomed, irrespective of Le Bon's long-term relationship at the time, which subsequently ended.
"Everyone says it's about compromise, which it is," he added, before coming to an abrupt halt. I waited for the conversation to start up again. It didn't. "The biggest raven I have ever seen just landed on my windowsill and then flew off again," he finally said. Reassured he hadn't hung up, I was lost for words, partly due to the previous silence and partly because what do you say to a former '80s heart-throb who changes the subject from romance to raven?
‘Not giving up'
It was probably a good time to stop the gushing. On the brink of being sucked in, I was rudely interrupted. Don't let this mushy romantic suck you in just yet. While his heart remains steadfast for Yasmin, he isn't exactly the innocent choirboy type.
"Love, compromise, promises, presents help," he said, finding his track again. "But ultimately it's about not giving up. People are led to believe that if it's not perfect then just ditch it and change it, these days. That's a f*****g mistake."
His sentences littered with a few more obscenities than hinted at here, at first he's careful to gauge whether my personality will accept them. But the green light given — dropping in a naughty word or two myself in order to discover the real Le Bon was my justification — he got dirtier than a mountain biker's bathtub.
"A dog with a pair of ‘wotsits' has also helped," he said dryly.
The comment refers directly to Le Bon's living arrangements. He may have dodged the female fans but his personal life is quite simply overrun by oestrogen.
Yasmin, 47, is still modelling and the couple has three daughters, Amber, 22, Saffron, 19, and Tallulah, 17. The two cats and one dog are female. "No more bitches," he said, laughing off his joke of getting another female dog. "I wanted another man in the house."
Stunning Amber is now following in her mother's footsteps and is modelling, something both Yasmin and Le Bon support. "It doesn't stretch her and she knows that. We know that," said a realistic le Bon. "But these days if a young person can make money doing something they are good at, then I see it as a success. In this climate it doesn't matter if it's just a paper round. She does classy shoots and her mother has taught her integrity, which is important."
Great girls, great taste
Calling himself a "good father" Le Bon says it is getting tough because they are all at what he calls "The Boyfriend Stage" — every father's nightmare.
"It's hard, because you know what they are thinking," he laughed, before explaining he'd been there too — a little too much detail to swallow. "But they are great girls with strong shoulders and it would seem they also have great taste, because the boys they are with are great guys."
His relationship with Yasmin isn't the only enduring union in Le Bon's life. Duran Duran, who met at art school in Birmingham and became megastars in the '80s, partly due to the invention of the music video, are back with their most eagerly-awaited album for over a decade.
The boys — Le Bon, John Taylor, 50, Roger Taylor, 50, and Nick Rhodes, 48 — have gone back to basics with a cool live feel on All You Need Is Now, produced by hitmaker Mark Ronson.
While they may now be Old Romantics rather than "new" ones with a combined age of 200, they still claim to know how to "bring it".
"We don't do a lot of looking back," said Le Bon. "Sometimes you look back and you can't really believe it. If I allow myself to do it, I go right back to the very beginning when it was all about the real excitement of this industry. Every day I was happy to be in a band. I was happy to be making music. We had no idea where it would take us, but it didn't matter."
In the early years the band went through numerous changes before arriving at the present line-up.
"The thing which makes us all work well together," Le Bon continued as if revealing a secret code, "is that we are five very different individuals. We all have quite strong personalities, but we have learnt to use that rather than let it upset us. It's channelled now."
Reminiscing about writing and performing "back then as opposed to today" Le Bon swiftly brought things back to his new first love — his family.
"My youngest is in a folk duo and they are doing great," he said fondly. "But you are up against it nowadays. When we were starting out it felt like there were only about 10 bands out there and you stood a chance. Now, with the internet and mass social media, companies, agents, contracts, clever equipment, television shows, it's so hard to get noticed. It's all about marketing."
Yasmin offers advice to Amber so Dad has wise words for Tallulah. "Stick to songwriting. It's the one true thing. It's the one thing which can't be taken over by a machine.
"The world will always need songwriting. It's the greatest gift."
