A Peek Into The Life Of Former Rolling Stones Bassist, Bill Wyman

English rock band, The Rolling Stones have cemented themselves as one of the most popular and enduring rock bands ever to have existed.

They came with their unique sounds, different from the pop-rock of the early 1960s, and pioneered the gritty, heavier-driven beats that came to define hard rock.

The band’s lineup consisted of singer Mick Jagger, multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones, lead guitarist Keith Richards, drummer Charlie Watts, and bassist Bill Wyman.

Wyman left the band in 1992 and is best remembered for his bass playing skills alongside his creepy personal life.

Below is an abridged tale on his personal life in all its creepiness.

The Rolling Stones were already an established team before Wyman’s arrival. Jones, who was the leader, assembled the band, procured a name for it, and drove their sound and image.

Later, Dick Taylor, their then bassist quit the band to resume his studies at Sidcup Art College and left them in dire need of a replacement.

Wyman got the info that the group was looking for a new bassist, and he auditioned at a pub in Chelsea in 1962.

The band members were impressed by his instrument and amplifiers (one of which Wyman modified himself, and a Vox AC30) and hired him as a successor for Taylor.

Soon after, Jagger and Richards became the primary creative forces behind the band, cutting off Jones, who had developed a drug addiction over time.

From then on, the band dropped hits after hits and was recorded as one of the world’s longest surviving rock ‘n’ roll bands.

Unlike Jones, Wyman was moderate in his use of alcohol and drugs and rather channeled the rest of his energy into bedding women.

His "girl mad" habit once got him ranked by Maxim magazine at number 10 on its "Living Sex Legends" list, as he was reputed to have had sex with over 1,000 women.

Even though he was already married with a child when he joined The Rolling Stones, that did not stop his philandering ways.

He then disclosed in his 2016 book, "Stone Alone," how he had slept with more girls than the rest of the band.

“I fared much better than the others in the girl department. In 1965, we sat down one evening in a hotel and worked that out.”

“Since the band had started two years earlier, I’d had 278 girls, Brian (Jones) 130, Mick (Jagger) about thirty, Keith (Richards) six, and Charlie (Watts) none,” he wrote.

His philandering ways among other excesses caused Wyman’s first marriage to hit the rocks, as the couple got divorced in 1969. Just when the dust of his failed marriage had begun to settle, his second attempt at marriage set tongues wagging.

Also, in his 1991 autobiography, "Standalone," Wyman disclosed he first met Mandy Smith, the teenage girl who became his second wife when she was 13 years old.

“She was a woman at 13. Everyone accepted her as an adult without question," he wrote.

According to the Guardian, their relationship was consummated when Smith was just 14 however, they had to wait until she was of legal age to get married.

They tied the knot on June 2, 1989 despite the uproar their unnatural and illegal pairing had caused in the media.

It didn’t take long for their sordid affair to go belly up as their 34 years age gap was too much of a bridge to cross.

After their split in 1981, Wyman told Daily Mail, “I was really stupid to ever think it could possibly work. She was too young. I felt she had to go out and see life for a bit.”

In a 1994 interview with London-based writer, Susan de Muth, Smith disclosed that she still had painful throwbacks about her marriage as it was manipulative, abusive, and demeaning.

She also told de Muth that she was angry at Wyman because, at the time they met, he was “surely old enough to know right from wrong and not to take advantage of a teenager’s naive love.”

Bearing in mind Smith’s troubled marriage, one would have thought that both families would stay apart forever. But that didn't happen.

Surprisingly, Wyman’s mother-in-law would later find love in the arms of his 30-year-old son, Stephen and get married shortly after the bassist’s divorce was finalized.

How's that for a weird story?