Mick Hucknall’s Fiery Love Life: Three Lovers a Day with Stars

As the star of the legendary band Simply Red, many would think that Mick Hucknall is best known for his illustrious music career.

And while the musician recently made headlines for lashing out at a fan at his own gig, this is far from the first time he has drawn attention for something outside of his discography.

The crooner, 65, who once boasted that he had ‘three lovers a day,’ dated a string of stars during his 90s heyday, enjoying unlikely romances with stars including Martine McCutcheon, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Helena Christensen.

During his music success, Mick hasn’t shied away from clashing with other names in the industry, and had well-publicised feuds with names including The Gallagher brothers, Steve Coogan, and even his own record label.

Earlier this week, Mick launched into an extraordinary rant at a fan at his own gig during the band’s 40th anniversary tour, complaining they were making too much noise during his performance.

Given his track record in both his professional and personal life, anyone who thinks this is the last of Mick’s controversies clearly doesn’t know him by now…

Mick’s roster of exes reads like a who’s who of some of the world’s most beautiful women, including a relationship with Catherine Zeta-Jones in 1998, a short-lived romance with Ulrika Jonsson and liaisons with model Helena Christensen, Melanie Sykes, Lady Victoria Hervey, and Steffi Graf. 

Another of his notable romances was with former EastEnders actress Martine McCutcheon, who claims that the pair went on a disastrous date in 1996 that ended with her vomiting in his dreadlocks – a story Mick has furiously denied as a ‘sad little fantasy’.  

Meanwhile, one of his would-be conquests Brigitte Nilsen somewhat unkindly described the singer as ‘not a very good-looking guy’, but hinted at what so many women saw in him, saying he was ‘outrageous, friendly and really cool’. 

Given his very colourful past, it’s perhaps no wonder that his new concert film has been slapped with a trigger warning about ‘sexual’ content because of lyrics about sex and drinking, with the singer previously admitting to his fondness for booze – as well as trying ‘every drug’. 

Now a reformed hellraiser, Mick lives with his wife Gabriella Wesberry, who he married at Forter Castle in Perthshire, Scotland, in 2005, and their 17-year-old daughter Romy True. 

While discussing his love life in 2010, Mick famously said: ‘Between 1985 – 1987, I would sleep with about three women a day, every day.

‘I never said no. This was what I wanted from being a pop star. I was living the dream and my only regret is that I hurt some really good girls.’

A documentary in 2004, entitled Is She Really Going Out With Him? added to the speculation after it claimed that the singer had slept with more than 3,000 women. 

Then in 2006, when asked by the Daily Mail whether reports about his trysts were true, Mick said: ‘No, I’m guilty. It’s life’s experience. I think it’s searching for approval. Love me, admire me – something like that.

‘In most cases, though, it usually had to do with being drunk. You go into any city centre on a Friday or Saturday night and you see it going on all over the world. 

‘There’s nothing particularly unusual about it but because of being famous it gets reported, it gets blown up. Ultimately, it doesn’t make you happy.’

However in 2012 he tried to correct the figure, telling the Irish Independent: ‘If you actually take a look at what I said in the infamous interview and what the editor introduced, you can see that they are slightly different.

‘I didn’t apologise to 3,000 women. The 3,000 wasn’t my figure. That was the editor’s figure.’ 

And in 2019, Mick again denied the claim, saying that the interview where he revealed the number of women he had bedded, was taken ‘wildly out of context’ 

Speaking candidly to Rob McGibbon for The Sunday Times, the singer revealed that when he said: ‘In the crazy days, it was screaming girls everywhere and it felt like you were sleeping with three women a day,’ – that it wasn’t a literal number.’ 

However, the singer did admit to living a playboy lifestyle when his career was at its peak, which involved ‘a lot of’ alcohol and drugs.

He went on to say in the frank interview that his past confessions were ‘conflated’. 

But when asked what the real number was, he said: ‘I have no idea. I don’t put chips on the bedposts. 

‘I haven’t a clue and have never thought about calculating.’

One conquest that did not come to pass was his attempt at wooing Brigitte Nielsen who he invited to have a bath with him when she ended up back at his flat in Manchester at 3am. 

‘He lit more candles in his purple bathroom, put some music on, then we were in the water,’ she recalled in her autobiography. 

While she did take a dip with the hitmaker, things went no further.  

‘Now Mick is many things but one thing he’s not is a very good-looking guy. However what he does have is this expression of someone who knows he’s totally outrageous and yet very friendly, really cool,’ she said. 

‘So I was just winging it and there we were, taking a bath together. We talked about ourselves and nothing happened. To be honest, even if you’d paid me I couldn’t have gone to bed with the guy.’

During an appearance on Loose Women, Martin McCutcheon also had warm words for the star, saying he was a ‘gentleman’ when they dated back in 1996, especially after an embarrassing incident when she was sick in his dreadlock on the way home from a night out. 

‘He had the dreadlocks in and the dreadlocks flicked everywhere like that. Not long after that, he had to cut his dreadlocks off,’ she said.

According to the former EastEnders star they continued to see each other after the incident and remained friends, but Mick was so furious by her claims, which she made on an episode of Loose Women, he took to X to give his side of the story. 

Accusing Martine of ‘dining out on a lie’, the singer wrote: ‘You vomited all over my driver’s car, not my hair. He was furious. 

‘You were so paralytic we had to put you to bed. As he will attest to. It’s a cheap, face-saving story.

‘So pls desist, show a little grace. You embarrass yourself with your sad little fantasy.’

Throughout his time in the public eye, Mick has also had his fair share of spats with some of the biggest names in showbusiness. 

Some have hit closer to home more than others, with Mick spending much of his life estranged from his mother Maureen after she walked out on him when he was just three years old.

The musician was then brought up by his father Reg, who died in 2009, in the family home in Manchester, before he shot to fame in the 1980s with hits such as Money’s Too Tight To Mention and Holding Back The Years, which was written about the pain caused by not having a mother. 

Speaking to The Sunday Mirror in 2015, Mick said that not only did he have to contend with his mother leaving him, he says she then lied to him about having cancer. 

His mother had no contact with her famous son until the height of his fame in the mid-1990s, when she said she was dying of cancer.

But after flying to Dallas, Texas, to where she lives to be by her side, he found out that she wasn’t ill and she told him how hurt she had been by leaving him.

He said: ‘People who have had a mum and a dad find it hard to understand – there wasn’t even like a mum replacement figure because my dad never married again.

‘As far as I’m concerned I had my dad and there isn’t another side. She can live her life and I won’t harbour a grudge.

‘She wasn’t there and consequently I don’t even know her. End of.’

In 2000, Mick became embroiled in a lengthy dispute with record label Warner after they released the retrospective album It’s Only Love against his wishes.

The singer eventually won 50 per cent control of his back catalogue, but in 2009 he filed a fresh lawsuit against the label EMI in a £30,000 action over its 1996 release of a Simply Red Greatest Hits CD.

Mick previously hit out at Warner in a 2003 interview, telling The Financial Times: ‘The contract was basically immoral.

‘Like many artists, my deal meant I paid for the cost of recording the music. I paid for the marketing. And I didn’t get any royalties until those costs had been incurred.

‘But despite this the contract stated that the master recordings still belonged to the record company.’

Since leaving Warner, Mick has released all of Simply Red’s albums under his own label, simplyred.com.

Even the singer’s neighbours aren’t immune to his wrath and in 2009 he was embroiled in a dispute over hunting rights at an estate in Ireland that he and another member of Simple Red owned. 

Mick and Chris De Margary bought Glenmore Lodge near Ballybofey in 2005 for an estimated 1.3m euros (£1.09m), but they later went to court claiming a neighbour was interfering with the sporting rights to lands surrounding their property.

The case was eventually settled in 2014, on the same day a full hearing had been due to take place.

Mick is no stranger to holding a grudge, something actor Steve Coogan can agree with, as he brutally cut off his former friend for 20 years after he made a tongue-in-cheek dig at him in his 2002 film 24 Hour Party People.

In the comedy, Steve made the comment while portraying both God and Factory Records supremo Tony Wilson, saying: ‘It’s a pity you didn’t sign The Smiths.

‘But you were right about Mick Hucknall, his music’s rubbish… and he’s a ginger.’

Steve then revealed in 2023 that his then-pal completely cut ties with him saying: ‘Mick Hucknall stopped speaking to me after the joke about God calling his music rubbish.’

Mick also had a well-publicised brawl with Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher in 1998 at a hotel bar, after the Wonderwall singer took offence to comments from the crooner that the band were ‘an embarrassment to fellow Mancunians.’

He told Q Magazine: ‘Oasis gave this delinquent, thicko, ‘givin’ it large, sorted mate’ diatribe.’

‘I was born in Manchester, and we don’t give it all this ”large, sound, sorted”. When I hear some things that they say, I cringe. I think Noel Gallagher is a bit of a d***head.’

Mick immediately lashed out, but Liam insisted he was joking and fled the exchange.

A guest told The Mirror at the time: ‘It was a wonder Mick kept calm for so long. Liam was really asking for it but the hotel security team were very efficient and intervened immediately.’