Penny Lancaster says she’d have left Sir Rod Stewart if he refused children

Penny Lancaster says she would have left Sir Rod Stewart if he refused to have children.

The 54-year-old model has been married to the 80-year-old rock star for 18 years, and she has admitted she needed him to be open to expanding his family if their relationship was ever going to work.

Asked if she’d have broken up with him if he remained against the idea of more children, she told Saga Magazine: “Yes.

“And that would have been very hard. But we just went with the flow.”

Stewart has Sarah Streeter, 60, with ex-girlfriend Susannah Boffey, Kimberly Stewart, 45, and Sean Stewart, 44, with actress Alana Stewart, Ruby Stewart, 37, with ex-girlfriend Kelly Emberg, and Renee Stewart, 32, and Liam Stewart, 31, with ex Rachel Hunter.

After the Maggie May singer changed his mind about having children, Lancaster suffered a miscarriage after falling pregnant.

The couple endured a difficult IVF battle, but welcomed sons Alastair Stewart, now 19, and Aiden Stewart, into the world.

She added: “Now Rod always says, ‘I wish I’d said yes [to babies] earlier, because then we could have had more children.’

“Even five years ago we were talking about adopting, but it ended up not happening. We thought there might be too much of an age gap.”

Now, Lancaster feels like their family is complete, and she’s happy with the two sons they share together.

She quipped: “Actually, I have three because there’s another big baby who needs my attention in a different way.

“I think all women would say that about their husbands.”

Lancaster recently admitted starting a family was the one thing that made her doubt their relationship.

She told Woman and Home magazine: “My biggest burning desire was to have a family. I respected that he had been through that enough times, and that might not be where he would want to go again.

“[I decided that] we would enjoy one another for as long as possible, but eventually I would have to bail.

“He always says to me, ‘I wish I’d seen it earlier. If we had started earlier, we could have more children’ – because even after having Alastair and Aiden, we talked about adopting.”