The heartbreak behind Lulu’s ‘lonely’ life: Lifetime of ‘terrible relationships’ left singer, 77, selecting to be single – because it’s revealed her late ex-husband Maurice Gibb secretly fathered a son

She was a sex symbol of the Sixties who has had no shortage of potential suitors over the years. 

Yet now, in her seventies, Lulu is choosing to stay single, admitting that while she often feels ‘lonely’, it’s still a better alternative to risking more heartbreak. 

She first faced heartache as a teenager when she struck up a romance with The Monkees’ Davy Jones after she supported his band at Wembley in 1967. 

The pair ‘hit it off straight away’ but Lulu was later devastated to learn that he had a long-time girlfriend, Linda Haines, who was pregnant with his child.

‘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,’ she recalled. 

Yet the following year, Lulu met Bee Gees star Maurice Gibb, with the couple marrying in a matter of a months after a whirlwind romance. 

While their relationship was not to be, this week, Lulu, 77, surprised fans when she claimed her late former husband potentially fathered a child with another woman.

The singer, who separated from Maurice in 1973 before the couple had any children, revealed she ‘just found out’ but had irrefutable proof the musician secretly fathered a son through a brief fling, that could well have happened during their four-year marriage.

The revelation no doubt sparked fresh heartache for Lulu, who has admitted she felt like a ‘failure’ when her marriage to the Bee Gees singer came to an end in 1973.

It had been love at first sight for the musical powerhouses, who met backstage at Top of the Pops when Lulu was 20 and he was 19 back in 1969.

The pair were married within the year, with Lulu musing: ‘Going steady is quite the wrong way to describe what was happening between us.

‘Going unsteady might better sum up the way we fell in and out with each other.’

The pair’s romance may have got off to a strong start, but it began to falter as a result of Maurice’s alcoholism. Lulu later developed an alcohol addiction in her sixties. 

Speaking on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories, Lulu said: ‘We thought we were king and queen of the world and were fabulous.

‘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. 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.’

Reflecting on their relationship, Lulu told the Daily Mail: ‘I was only 20 when I married Maurice. Perhaps if I’d married him in my 30s, the relationship may have lasted longer. Who knows?’ 

While love’s young dream soon soured, Lulu is now dealing with the revelation that Maurice – who died in 2003 from a cardiac arrest – may have been unfaithful during their marriage. 

Yet upon learning that Maurice had secretly fathered another child, she confessed that she hadn’t looked into when the child was born ‘because it wasn’t that important’. 

Instead, Lulu had set her sights on looking for husband number two. 

She told the Daily Mail: ‘I was programmed to think that the answer to life was a white picket fence and three children, you know, the happy-ever-after. And it’s unrealistic.’ 

Indeed the reality turned out to be quite different, with newly-divorced Lulu embarking on a passionate fling with David Bowie, who she described as ‘totally seductive’, with a ‘magnetic sort of personality that was intoxicating to be around.’

She explained: ‘I was not cool and he was cool, so I was unbelievably flattered. He was the cool dude, and I was just not.

‘Did it change my life and I then became something else?’ I think it influenced my life. But then I married John Frieda. I didn’t stick around with David Bowie.’

Lulu’s marriage to the celebrity hairdresser took place in 1976. The following year, they welcomed son Jordan. 

The couple had tried for another child but in 1998 they lost a baby, and as John’s hairdressing empire continued to grow, they began to drift apart. 

It was John who ended the marriage, telling Lulu in 1990: ‘We’re not getting along, we’ve nothing in common. We never did have anything in common. I know exactly where I’m going and I know exactly what I want in my life. I want out.’ 

Reflecting on their split, Lulu told The Telegraph: ‘I think John left me in 1988 when I lost the baby. I was in denial of my marriage going wrong. I didn’t see us drifting apart. I always thought there would be signs. Perhaps there were. I just didn’t see them.’

While she was heartbroken by the divorce, her family were the opposite.   

‘They hated the way I’d carried a torch for John,’ she recalled. ‘They’d also seen how it had triggered years of introspection, therapy and counselling.’ 

Yet she refused to badmouth her husbands, stating: ‘I love Maurice, I love John. You can’t love somebody and then deny what you once had. It was real at the time. And with every relationship you learn, you grow.’

While Lulu did not marry again she was said to have enjoyed relationships with younger men. 

She was linked to Take That’s Jason Orange when she collaborated with them on the 1993 single Relight My Fire – at the time she was 45, while Jason was 23. 

She described their bond as a ‘special relationship’ yet later insisted: ‘He’s very, very cute but no, nothing happened.’ 

Jason did not address the romance rumours, yet when Take That were asked about Lulu during an appearance on The Jonathan Ross Show, Howard Donald pointed at Jason and crudely exclaimed: ‘He’s the one who f****d her!’

In 2002 she was linked to another younger man after being photographed at Victoria and David Beckham’s World Cup party with actor Stuart Manning. 

At the time she was 53 and Stuart was 21, with Lulu saying: ‘He is a lovely guy. But it’s just a bit of fun, nothing too serious. I like young guys and I also like men who are my own age – I don’t discriminate when it comes to age.’

However, in recent years, Lulu has found comfort in staying single. 

In 2014, Lulu admitted that she feared feeling lonely but was learning to love herself. 

‘I was struggling with getting older,’ she told the Daily Mail. ‘I was up and down about it. And then there’s that feeling when you wake up in the middle of the night and you worry about the day when you won’t be able to look after yourself. 

‘Of being a burden. Of feeling lonely.’

Yet despite those feelings of loneliness, she realised that a relationship wouldn’t be the resolution. 

‘Marriage isn’t the answer to my so-called problems,’ she said. ‘I do admit that I sometimes feel, ‘Oh, if I had somebody to do this with, it would be easier’. Sometimes, having someone makes it easier for getting through life.

‘Somebody once said: ‘I have plenty of people to do things with. But nobody to do nothing with.’ And I know what that means. After all, you can’t cuddle up to a round of applause.’

By 2024 she seemed to have struck the right balance, musing: ‘My life is full of love, but it’s not one on one.

Reflecting on relationships, she added: ‘Been there, done it, and now it is not a priority. Maybe as a kid it was, but not now. It’s about the bigger sense of love.’

Despite Lulu feeling happier as a single woman, she has no doubt been consumed with thoughts about her first marriage after learning that Maurice may have fathered a child during their marriage.  

She said on The Louis Theroux Podcast this week: ‘I think he’s got a son. It might have happened when we were married. I just found out.

‘Someone showed me something and I can’t remember the year he impregnated this girl after a one night stand and he has a son who has had his genes taken. It’s proven. He’s 100 percent Maurice’s.’

Maurice has two known children, daughter Samantha and son Adam, with his second wife Yvonne Spenceley.

But in 2019, Nick Endacott-Gibb, who was given up for adoption as a baby, claimed that he is the biological son of the British performer and band studio manager Patti Nolder, after a DNA test provided a ‘100 percent match’ with Maurice’s son Adam.

However Nick, who is also a musician, said particular members of the family were still questioning his claims.

‘For some reason some members of the family still want to publicly cast doubt on the validity of my DNA result from two years ago, rather than listening to the music I’m creating which surely speaks for itself,’ he said at the time.

After searching for his biological parents his entire life, Nick met Patti in 2003, and discovered she worked with the Bee Gees as a studio manager, enjoying a close relationship with the band – Gibb brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice.

Nick, who was raised by a middle-class family in Ashdown Forest, East Sussex, believed that his father was Chris Andrews, frontman of the Sixties rock band Fleur de Lys, but a DNA test in 2009 came back negative.

But after Patti’s sister told him Maurice was his biological father, he took three separate facial recognition tests which showed there was a high chance the pair were related. One returned a match percentage of 95.2.

Maurice’s widow Yvonne refused his request for a DNA test, despite years of begging.

However, having sent a saliva test to an online genealogy firm, he was shocked to discover that Maurice’s son Adam had provided his own DNA to website Ancestry.co.uk years previously – and the match gave Nick the answers he needed.

Speaking about the likelihood of Maurice fathering a son during their marriage, Lulu said she hadn’t looked into when the child was born ‘because it wasn’t that important’.

‘I think I used to take myself way too seriously,’ she added. ‘I know you’re surprised at that, but it’s true, I think.

‘And it’s painful when you take yourself too seriously or when you see the world black and white because there are many grey areas and I’ve learned through trial and tribulation.

‘You know, I’ve had unbelievable highs, but I’ve also had a lot of lows, which most people have in their life. For God’s sake, I’m no different to anybody else in that respect.

‘So I’ve looked at it, I’ve wanted to know why. I’m always curious and I think that’s probably helped me to survive all the ups and the downs in my life.’