JUMPIN' JACK FLASH - STILL ROCKING AT 80

AS MUSIC ICON S K J HITS HIS MILESTONE BIRTHDAY, WE LOOK BACK AT HIS VERY COLOURFUL LIFE

- MITYA UNDERWOOD

For more than six decades, Sir Mick Jagger's gyrating snake hips, flamboyant sense of style and energetic on-stage antics have firmly cemented him as one of the world's most legendary rock stars.

And even if just a fraction of the wild tales of his years with The Rolling Stones are true, it's almost unfathomable that he's still got the stamina of a teenager as he celebrates his 80th birthday this week.

Not that anyone's complaining, least of all Mick, as he prepares to throw the birthday party to top all birthday parties with 300 guests understood to be invited, including bandmates Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards, who, despite their love/hate relationship, maintains, "I still love him dearly."

Mick has a lot to be thankful for - a new album is said to be in the works, he's celebrating the 20th anniversary of his knighthood, he has fully recovered from a 2019 heart operation, and he's made a somewhat chaotic life in one of the most successful bands of all time look like a walk in the park.

The dad, grandad and great-grandad is also arguably still the most lusted-after member of The Rolling Stones (he's reportedly bedded upwards of 4,000 women).

"You start out playing rock'n'roll so you can have sex and do drugs but you end up doing drugs so you can still play rock'n'roll and have sex," he once said of his career.

During this landmark year there has even been speculation that the music legend has got engaged to his 36-year-old choreographer girlfriend Melanie Hamrick. After being spotted with a sizeable diamond ring on her engagement finger, the author and former ballerina described it as a "promise ring". Melanie, who has dated Mick for nine years, is the mother of his eighth - and youngest - child, six-year-old son Deveraux Octavian Basil Jagger.