What’s done on tour, stays on tour; in other words, it doesn’t count. That’s the fundamental rock and roll maxim that drives the shrewdest wives to watch from the sidelines when their men are on stage.
The attractions of a journey are too frequent and the culture so depraved that all but the most monastic are tempted to stray.
But Foo Fighters singer Dave Grohl, the former drummer of Nirvana, was destined to be one of the good guys, often described as the nicest man in rock, married to former model and producer Jordyn Blum for 21 years.
That’s why the news that he had gotten another woman pregnant has come as a shock to so many. No doubt Grohl’s explosive statement on Tuesday night (perhaps meant to be overshadowed by the crucial televised debate between Trump and Harris) has many fans stunned.
The message read: “I recently became a father to a new daughter, born out of wedlock. I plan to be a loving and understanding father to her. I love my wife and children, and I am doing everything I can to regain their trust and earn their forgiveness.
Grohl to perform with Foo Fighters at Denmark’s Roskilde Festival in July
The Foo Fighters star and his wife Jordyn Blum arrive at the 2012 MusiCares Person of the Year Gala at the Los Angeles Convention Center in 2012.
“We are grateful for your consideration for all the children involved as we move forward together.”
But will Blum, 48, find it in her heart to “move on” with the man she married in 2003? It would take superhuman patience, even though she knew she had married a man who had lived the rock star lifestyle to the fullest, complete with his women.
Over the past two decades, she and Grohl have forged a beautiful family unit with daughters Violet, 18, Harper, 15, and Ophelia, 10, appearing to be enviably strong and “normal.”
Their home was a mansion in Encino, LA, with a swimming pool, recording studio, basketball court and mini-golf in the garden.
Compared to the celebrities, it was all fairly low-key, which seems to have been deliberate, as Grohl, the godfather of grunge since his days in Nirvana, had become very domestically focused in middle age.
He said he enjoyed slow cooking on the barbecue while working on music in the studio. “There’s something to be said about recording studios that smell like your mum’s Sunday roast – they make everyone feel at ease.”
He also had a large holiday home in Hawaii, but his life was deliberately modest, given his £250m fortune. He once said he would wake up every day, choose a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt from his collection of about 30 of each, make breakfast and help his daughters get ready for school.
The highlight of the day was when everyone came home and he would take them horseback riding or watch TV with them. “When you have children, you see life in a different light. You feel love more deeply and maybe you’re a little more compassionate,” he said.
His late mother called him “superdad.” He said that being a father had simply changed him.
Dave Grohl attends Wimbledon with his impassive-faced wife, Jordyn Blum, in July.
Dave has been married to model Jordyn Blum, his second wife, for 21 years.
He certainly seemed like a changed man. In 2004, a visitor to his recording studio (who was not at home at the time) discovered that the wifi password was “pussy” and that there was a large poster of British pin-up Kelly Brook on the wall. Grohl also spoke of having to get rid of the band’s pornographic magazines before singer Norah Jones saw them, which may have been a joke.
Jordyn Blum knew this side of him well. She is not his first wife, and before they were a couple, he had a reputation as a womaniser. He married photographer Jennifer Leigh Youngblood in 1994 (the year Nirvana bandmate Kurt Cobain committed suicide). They separated three years later. In 1999, Blum reflected: “I was 25, my wife was even younger. We weren’t ready to get married.” He later dated Louise Post of the band Veruca Salt, who accused him of cheating on her with actress Winona Ryder and dozens of other women.
Another of his girlfriends was American snowboarder Tina Basich, who had to call him over and over again for five weeks until he picked up her call and admitted he was over their relationship. She said: “I was really in love with him. Break-ups suck. Rock star break-ups are the worst. All I got was a five-minute phone call after five weeks of calling him and trying to get in touch with him because I just had to know if those rumours were true.”
The rumours may have affected actress Kari Wuhrer, his next girlfriend. She was followed by Melissa Auf der Maur of the group Hole, whom he dated until 2001. No wonder his late mother said: “I was worried about women. My biggest fear was that Madonna would get him.”
He was also openly appreciative of the groupie scene when on tour. In a 2002 interview (given after he started dating Blum), he said: “The groupies come to the back. They know what they want; they know what the band wants. It just happens. It’s that easy.”
Dave appears to be listening to his unborn daughter with his wife Jordyn Blum at the 2006 Grammys
In another interview he said: “There is a difference between true love and a crush, lust and a one-night stand… Although I do like a good encounter.”
And where does Blum fit into all this? She came into his life in 2001, in the midst of this hedonistic period, and they began dating seriously the following year.
The first meeting was in 2001 at the Sunset Marquis Whiskey Bar in West Hollywood. Grohl was drinking with his Foo Fighters bandmate Taylor Hawkins. He said: “Taylor was the best looking. A bombshell walks up to him and starts talking to Taylor.
“I’m wearing sneakers, no socks, dirty shorts and a dirty T-shirt. She motioned for her friend Jordyn to come over. I was like, ‘Oh my God. No way!’ So I just had a few drinks and acted like a jerk. And by the end of the night I was drunk and I just stared at her and I was like, ‘You’re my future ex-wife. ‘
“Then he gave me his number: ‘Jordyn, your future ex-wife.'”
But Grohl “wasn’t ready for a serious relationship” and “stopped calling.” That all changed when Hawkins was hospitalized in a coma following a heroin overdose in August 2001. (He died of a heart attack in March 2022 while Foo Fighters, whose hit “Everlong” has become a popular wedding song, were on tour.)
Grohl said: ‘I was sitting there watching pool and a gum commercial comes on – a girl walking around the subway robbing people. All of a sudden, I was like, ‘That’s that girl, Jordyn, that’s that girl!’ And over the course of the next few days, I started having these dreams about that life I’d been thinking about, dreams of settling down.
“I was like, ‘I’m not going to wait another minute, because life is too short, man. It’s too delicate. ‘ The day we got home, I called her and she was like, ‘Wow, I never thought I’d hear from you again. ‘ So I took her to a restaurant… and that was it.”
Until this week’s extraordinary confession. Perhaps there were signs that something was amiss this summer, when Grohl was in an uncharacteristically bad mood at Wimbledon with a stone-faced Blum. Perhaps the looming disaster was why he launched ill-tempered, ill-calibrated attacks on Taylor Swift days later, questioning whether she and her band played live during the Eras tour. That outburst was out of character for a man who has friends all over the world in every genre and part of the music industry.
The Grohls last year, before Dave’s shocking confession. From left, Harper, Jordyn, Dave, Ophelia and Violet at the Grammys in Los Angeles, California.
Dave Grohl in 1993 when he was Nirvana’s drummer, with bandmates including the late Kurt Cobain and Chris Novoselic
Most attributed his bad mood to the fact that he was trying to regain his balance following the death of his best friend Hawkins, which was followed a few months later by the death of his mother, Virginia, who was, as he often said, the most important person in the world to him.
His friends believe that if Grohl did something as “uncharacteristic” and “in bad taste” as getting a girl pregnant, it was because he was caught in the clutches of that double pain.
It remains to be seen whether his wife will be as understanding or whether the joking prediction that she will one day become his ex-wife will come true.