As the pop icon Lulu hits the road with her farewell tour, the Scottish singer has been making headlines because of her love life as well as her emotional final performances.
The 75-year-old star, who will finish off her last ever tour at Glastonbury this June just as Elton John did last year, may be happily single these days, but she enjoyed a string of high profile romances in her youth, admitting that she was in love with music legend David Bowie “maybe for a minute” back in the day.
OK! takes a look back over the loves and romances of Lulu, the pints sized popstar from Glasgow...
David Bowie
The singer was close to Bowie, who died from liver cancer in 2016, when she covered his classic hit in 1974 and she has opened up about how she felt like the star understood her more than most.
She explained: "He said, ‘[The record company] don’t get you and they don’t get your voice either’. When I heard that, and I'd already been in the business a long time... I felt like I had been seen.”
Talking about the chemistry between them on their first meeting, Lulu, who found fame at the tender age of 15 when her song hit the top ten, said: “His hair was orange, his skin was alabaster. Once we’d had something to drink, we were head-to-head, nose-to-nose for the rest of the evening.”
She added: “When he focused on me I felt like the only person in the room, in the universe, I found him intoxicating. It was the sexual chemistry which drew us together.”
The star went on to describe their relationship as “amazing” as they “recognised something in each other” but admitted she was “frightened” of Bowie’s “druggy” lifestyle.
John Freida
As a result, the star said she threw herself into the arms of the celebrity hairdresser John Frieda, marrying in 1977, before going on to have their son Jordan, 46. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1991 but romance was never far from the pintsized popstar before, and after her nuptials.
Davy Jones
After a short lived romance with musician Peter Noone, Lulu’s next object of affection was Davy Jones, who had found fame with The Monkees. The star fell for pop pin up Davy in 1967 but sadly he broke her heart and had hidden the fact that he had a long term girlfriend on the side, Linda Haines, who was also pregnant with his child.
Talking about the ill-fated romance, Lulu said: “I fell for him and thought he fell for me.” But after not hearing from him for a while she wondered what the deal was, only to discover he was marrying someone else.
She said: “He had been living with that girl so he was coming out to see me and taking me out and the girl was living with him and I had no idea. I was heartbroken.”
Maurice Gibb
Unfortunately Lulu’s next relationship was no more successful, and after falling for Bee Gee legend Maurice Gibb, in 1968, the star-crossed lovers married in 1969. But by 1974 it was all over, in part to do with Maurice’s alcohol issues, and this time it was Lulu who was the heartbreaker. She said: “The drinking was a part of it but we shouldn’t have got married in the first place... we should have just had a romance.
“I decided it had to end,” the star explained. “He didn’t want it to end and it hurt him. I totally loved and adored him but... in love with him? I was probably in love with love.”
Jason Orange
After her divorce from John Frieda, Lulu went on to enjoy a series or relationships with younger men, and the star was romantically linked to Take That star Jason Orange after she recorded huge hit, Relight My Fire, with them in 1993.
The star, who was 44 at the time, while Jason was 23, has never confirmed their romance, but has admitted they had a “special relationship”. She said: “He’s very, very cute but no, nothing happened.”
Jason’s bandmate, Howard Donald, was less discreet, however, and blurted out on Jonathan Ross’s BBC1 show at the time that Jason was “the one who f****d her!”
She now admits to being "happy on her own" living in London.
