------------------------------------------------------- MAY 1, 2004 ------------------------------------------------------- Source: The Express Newspapers, via LexisNexis The Love Child Rick Wakeman has Kept Secret for 18 Years By Rachel Kaufman One of Britain's top musicians speaks for the first time about the daughter he s cared about and provided for since her birth but who the rest of his family knew nothing about. Here, he tells Rachel Kaufman why he has chosen this moment to come clean This week Rick Wakeman carried out one of the most difficult and traumatic tasks that he has ever faced in his life -- telling his family for the first time that he has a secret daughter whom he has kept hidden from them for nearly 18 years. The rock legend yesterday contacted his estranged wife, former model Nina Carter, and their children, Jemma, 21, and Oscar, 17, to admit to having an American love child whom he has supported since birth without their knowledge -- although he only met her for the first time after his marriage broke up. Amanda, now 17, was the result of a fling with his former love and one-time costume designer Denise Girard. With her blonde hair, the teenager bears a striking resemblance to her father. And -- just like him -- she loves playing the piano. Rick, 54, admits he is terrified at the impact that the revelation might have on his children (he also has three adult sons from previous relationships). "I'm gutted as to what I'm putting my family through, " he told the Daily Express this week. "I love my children so much. I have no excuses and no answers. I can only hope and pray they can somehow understand that I made the decisions I did because I thought they were for the best for all concerned. "This has been the most horrendous time of my life. I've been feeling sick and numb for the past few months. It's something that has been eating away at me throughout my life. "I've wanted the truth to come out for so long, but I wanted to wait until my children had all reached a certain age. My youngest is now almost 18. I don't care what happens to me, I just worry about how this will affect everyone else." He adds: "At the time, I never told anyone about my daughter in America because I was married to Nina and desperate to keep my family together. I'm aware people will judge me, but I found myself in a no-win situation. I never wanted to hurt anyone." Rick is reluctant to say too much about Amanda -- not just to protect her but also to avoid causing his other children even more upset. While he has travelled to America to meet her on a number of occasions since their first face-to-face meeting two years ago (and is currently over there on the 35th anniversary world tour of his band Yes for the next two months), he admits that they are not in regular contact and that Amanda -- who is about to begin university -- has her own life to live. "Amanda's fine. She is my daughter and as such I love her, " he says. "But she's anxious about my other children's reaction to the news about her. "I hope one day maybe they can meet, if only to talk about what a complete waste of space I am." The story that Rick feels able to reveal only now goes back to a Yes tour of the US in 1985. It was there that he had a one-night stand with long-time friend and ex-lover Denise, now 50. She was the woman credited with designing Rick's flamboyant stage costumes in the Seventies -- the wizard-like capes that became as synonymous with the keyboard player as his long blond tresses. After his second marriage ended at the end of 1980, Rick and American-born Denise became romantically involved for the first time. He invited her to England to live with him in his rented London flat. The couple even talked about marriage. Rick says: "But my life was problematic. We split up in 1981 and Denise flew back to the States." He then met Nina and married her three years later. But a year after that Denise, who still cared for him deeply, turned up at one of Rick's American shows. "We ended up together that evening, " he admits. "We'd been friends for many years. Neither of us meant it to happen but sometimes, these things do." Rick insists: "It was the first and last time I was unfaithful to Nina throughout the entire marriage. It has never stopped eating away at me. But you have to live with it because you can't turn the clock back." Rick found out that Denise was pregnant in a phone call from her in August 1985 while he was on tour in Australia. "I was shellshocked when Denise told me, " he says quietly. Two weeks later, Nina broke the news she was pregnant with their second child. Rick recalls: "I walked around in a daze. I found myself in a completely no-win situation." Desperate to hold his marriage together, and with his daughter Jemma then only three, Rick agonised about what to do. "If I'd told Nina what happened, the marriage would almost certainly have been over. That would have left Jemma and the unborn Oscar without a dad." Eventually, with Denise's agreement, he chose to financially support his daughter but keep her a secret from his world back home. Amanda grew up across the Atlantic unaware of her famous roots. As she reached adolescence, she became deeply confused about her identity. The animal-loving teenager wondered where her blonde hair came from, so she asked her mother: "Who is my father?" Denise finally told her the truth. Until two years ago, Rick had no contact with either Amanda or her mother. But following his separation from former girlfriend Nina, 52, four years ago and Denise's own divorce, he began to take the first difficult steps to making contact. Rick's personal life has always been chequered. His first marriage to Ros Grover in 1970 produced two sons, Oliver, 32, and Adam, 30. They divorced in 1977 and Rick then fell for Swiss-born Danielle Corminboeuf, with whom he lived in Montreux, Switzerland. He had another son with Danielle -- Benjamin, 26 -- and they married in 1980, but parted shortly afterwards and he returned to the UK. That was when Denise moved to England from America, but their relationship didn't last. Denise flew off to work as a designer in South America and China and in 1981, Rick met Nina Carter. He was on a solo tour at the time, and Nina was brought along by one of the star's friends to watch his show at the Oxford Apollo. "Nina sang a song on my record label, " Rick recalls. "She sang it well but it was a terrible song. I should know, because I wrote it, " he says with a smile. A week after their first meeting, they went on a date to see Michael Crawford in Barnum at the London Palladium. Within a couple of months, he moved into Nina's house in Godalming. They married in November 1984 in Camberley, Surrey. "It was a fabulous day, " says Rick. "It was one of those rare occasions when Nina returned to her natural dark hair, so it was a unique day in many ways." Initially, Nina proved a calming influence on Rick, an alcoholic whose extraordinary lifestyle had cause him to suffer three heart attacks before the age of 30. Born in London in 1949, he learned to play the piano at the age of four, trained at the Royal College of Music and left early to join the rock scene. He was a member of The Strawbs and did session work with David Bowie and Cat Stevens before linking up with progressive rock band Yes in 1971. Over the next two decades, he broke away from Yes on several occasions to forge a successful career in his own name. In 1974, he recorded his monumental album Journey To The Centre Of The Earth with the London Symphony Orchestra. But as his musical achievements scaled giddying heights, so did his drinking habits. He drank port and brandy in pint glasses and chain-smoked. Four years after meeting Nina, Rick finally gave up drinking after he suffered alcoholic hepatitis. In 1988, he moved with Nina to the Isle of Man where they involved themselves with community life and bringing up Jemma and Oscar. Rick played golf on his rare days off and found comfort from Christianity. An active campaigner for charities, he built a studio in his house and his work became more introspective. He played gigs in churches and small clubs. Despite earning fortunes from his career, Rick has frequently experienced financial problems -- which he blames mainly on his divorces. "My relationship with Nina was fantastic in every way for many years. The major problems were usually financial. When I was with Nina, I was still recovering from two divorces and some losses from a few failed ventures. But we always seemed to come through in the end." After 16 years, the couple split up in 2000. Rick packed two suitcases and left. Nina stayed in the marital home on the Isle of Man, where she now lives with local builder John Martin, 31. Today, Rick moves between hotels and rented accommodation. He credits his gypsy ancestry with his willingness to roam. "I don't know where I'm going now or what I'm going to do, " he says wistfully. His relationship with Nina remains a subject he is reluctant to discuss in any detail. "I don't like to look back on the last year or so of our marriage when the problems started. I have too many wonderful memories, " he says. "Besides, what's the point? I like to look at the good things in life." Even so, Rick reluctantly admits that the stress of his divorce over the past four years has affected his health, causing him to suffer blackouts, depression and a clinical breakdown. Once, he found himself sitting in the middle of Trafalgar Square but couldn't remember how he got there. He later realised that he had been there for four hours. On another occasion, he felt he was about to have a breakdown while recounting a joke in a TV interview. "I just went on to autopilot, " he says now. "When I came off set and was back in the safety of the dressing room, I cried." In company, he covers these problems with a dry sense of humour that in recent years has won him regular appearances on television shows such as Countdown, Have I Got News For You, Grumpy Old Men and Through The Keyhole. This week, he is back doing what he does best: performing live and sitting behind the astonishing collection of 18 keyboards which he plays each night on Yes's world tour. Such is the scale of the Seventies supergroup's act that in the run-up to the tour, he spent 15-hour days programming the sounds into all the keyboards and running through a legion of technicalities with the band. They finally began in Seattle two weeks ago, and are due in Las Vegas and New York before moving on to Europe. But, for all the hard work, he is at least on familiar territory. It is a fear of the unknown -- of how his other children will react to the revelation with which they were confronted yesterday that worries Rick Wakeman more than anything else now. "I haven't slept at all recently, " he admits. "But I've always known the truth has to come out." Close Window YesInThePress.com For site comments, inquiries, corrections, or additions, contact yitp@yesservices.com