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Rod Stewart In Hot Water Over Mock ISIS Video: A Look At His Controversial Life

By Victoria Miller
Published on: 22:30 PST, Mar 3, 2017

Rod Stewart knows that every picture tells a story, but the 72-year-old singer surely wishes this one was never told. Stewart is in hot water after his wife, Penny Lancaster, briefly posted a bizarre Instagram video of the British rocker and some friends appearing to mock a terrorist killing while frolicking in the desert.

In the leaked video, which was shot in the desert near Abu Dhabi, Lancaster rolls in the sand dunes while Rod appears to hold a kneeling male companion by the hair and makes a cutting motion against his throat as if he is beheading him. Politico posted the video of the incident, which was quickly deleted from Lancaster’s account but will live forever on the Internet.

As the video made the rounds, it didn’t take long for Rod Stewart to hop into damage control mode. The music legend quickly addressed fan backlash with a statement that he also posted to social media, explaining that the video was just a bunch of friends goofing off between shows and was not a spoof of a terrorist killing.

“From re-enacting the Beatles’ Abbey Road crossing to spontaneously playing out Game of Thrones, we were simply larking about pre-show,” Rod wrote. “Understandably, this has been misinterpreted and I send my deepest apologies to those who have been offended.”

Reaction to Rod Stewart’s apology was mixed. While some gave the Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Famer a pass for horsing around on his down time, others slammed him for his insensitivity.

Of course, this is not the first time Rod Stewart has been embroiled in controversy. The rocker has regularly dodged rumors about his personal life and has been the target of several fan lawsuits over the years. Since the 1970s, the singer has been dogged by a rumor about a wild night with a slew of sailors in a San Diego gay bar, which allegedly culminated with him checking into an emergency room to get is stomach pumped. In an interview on Katie Couric’s now defunct talk show, Rod Stewart set the record straight on the story, saying he is “as heterosexual as they come.”

“I used to have this guy work for me, he was a gay publicist,” Stewart said, according to the Huffington Post. “He’s dead now so he might be watching. I had to fire him because he did something terrible, which I won’t go into. So he wanted revenge so he started this rumor about me, and it was horrible because my kids were at school. So that is definitely not true.”

Stewart has even been slammed by his own fans. In 1990, Stewart was sued by a Michigan concert goer who claimed she sustained injuries to her hand after the rocker kicked a soccer ball her way during a 1989 show at Detroit’s Pine Knob Music Theatre. According to Billboard, in the lawsuit, the fan claimed to be left permanently disfigured due to Stewart’s tradition of kicking soccer balls into the crowd.

In 2014, another fan slapped Stewart with a $10,000 broken nose lawsuit, but Rod shrugged it off. In a statement to TMZ, Stewart said his concerts are “a contact sport.” Stewart has vowed to never stop kicking those footballs.

In his 2012 memoir, Rod: The Biography, Stewart revealed that, back in the day, he and his Faces bandmate Ronnie Wood bought anti-old capsules and replaced the contents with cocaine before taking them anally. Stewart also revealed that he once turned down an offer by famed groupie Cynthia Plaster to have a cast made of his penis because he didn’t feel he was as well-endowed as other members of Plaster Caster’s club.

Rod Stewart has also made headlines for his love life. Rod is a father to eight children by five women. Stewart’s long list of wives and girlfriends include actress Britt Eckland, Alana Hamilton, and models Kelly Emberg and Rachel Hunter. Stewart has been married to Lancaster since 2007 and they have two children together.

Rod Stewart is set to perform a series of shows in Las Vegas and the U.K. before he hits the road with Cyndi Lauper this summer.

Take a look at the controversial video that has Rod Stewart in trouble once again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Alue96mPG7Y

[Featured Image by Jeff Spicer – WPA Pool/Getty Images]

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