JERRY'S £1M BOOK DEAL IN JEOPARDY
Jerry Hall and her ex-husband Mick Jagger
By Adam Helliker
WHEN Jerry Hall signed deal with publisher HarperCollins to pen a tell-all autobiography, with particular reference to her nine-year relationship with Rolling Stone Mick Jagger, it promised to be an explosive read.
Her publishers salivated at the prospect of what could be, with the right marketing, one of the publishing sensations of the year.
However, now I hear that when the manuscript was delivered to the US arm of HarperCollins it wasn’t nearly explosive enough and last week was rejected as unfit for publication.
Worse still, the supermodel mother of four of Jagger’s children even faces the prospect of having to return her £500,000 advance unless a solution can be found.
Last week her agent Ed Victor was busy trying to find someone to ghostwrite the book for Jerry in double quick time in order to get it out for a planned September 2009 publication date.
The main problem with the manuscript, I hear, is that it is terrifically bland. What the publisher commissioned was a colourful description of her life with Jagger for nearly a decade.
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The main problem with the manuscript, I hear, is that it is terrifically bland.
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However, it seems that Jerry was both unable and unwilling to really dish the dirt on Mick.
A contact at HarperCollins USA says he senses Jagger’s influence in what has happened, telling me: “Mick is known to hate biographies and doesn’t like to dwell on the past and I feel sure he talked Jerry out of writing about their life together for all those years.”
When the publisher announced they had commissioned the autobiography in October 2007 Jane Friedman, then HarperCollins’ global president but who has since left the company, said Jerry was a force of nature whose book would take a candid look at her experiences as a young model from Texas, her marriage to Mick Jagger and her life in the rock ’n’ roll fast lane.
“She is a vibrant, happy woman with a great sense of humour whose life story contains the unexpected and makes for a riveting read,” said Friedman.
Unfortunately for the publisher what was submitted was not the compelling account hoped for. I hear that when it came down to writing about details of her life with Mick, who turns 66 this year, Jerry just couldn’t bring herself to do it.
Plus, when it came to revealing the heartbreak and tantrums inspired by the breakdown of their relationship, once again she fell short.
When I spoke to Ed Victor, however, he denied there were difficulties with Jerry’s manuscript and said publication is still on schedule for September 2009.
He said he would be pitching a serialisation deal in a newspaper for Jerry in the next few weeks.
