Cotton is now dating the Emmy Award-winning British film director Elliot Hegarty, whose TV hits include football comedy Ted Lasso, and the steamy adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s Rivals. Jo weighed in on that relationship too, telling the Daily Mail last year: “I was shocked, actually. I didn’t expect Fearne to have a new boyfriend. And Jesse was devastated.”
But Jesse has also moved on swiftly – he’s now dating Made in Chelsea’s Gemma Gregory. She, too, has a child from a former relationship and had previously dated the King’s godson Nicholas Knatchbull (great-grandson of the late Lord Mountbatten) and England polo captain Henry Brett.
Gregory announced her relationship with Jesse in 2025 with a picture of them together on Instagram captioned, “Bloody love this one”. Earlier this month, she shared a photograph of Jesse sitting in the bath, writing: “Celebrating one year of love, a year of sobriety and a year of growth”. Gregory was notorious for her hard partying while on Made in Chelsea but returned to the show sober after spending time at a spa retreat.
Cotton put a positive spin on her divorce when appearing on Lorraine Kelly’s show in 2025, saying, “It’s all very amicable, and the kids are doing great.” But she struck a rather different note this week on Instagram while promoting her new book, Likeable, saying in an emotional post that it explored “how I have shape-shifted, shrunk, diluted myself, remained silent and bent over backwards for approval”.
In 2019, Cotton confessed her marital woes in her column for Red magazine, writing: “This year, Jesse and I hit a rough patch – he was away, touring relentlessly, I was trying to keep my own career going while looking after our kids and we were both desperately clinging on to our marriage.”
She recalled one devastating moment – when the pair got into a two-hour “screaming match” at their local park and broke down crying. Cotton wrote: “In the midst of this gargantuan row, I think we both wondered where the love had gone and worried it might not come back.”
It’s perhaps puzzling that one of the stresses on their marriage was Jesse’s busy touring schedule, given his distinctly moderate level of success. Jesse played with a few groups – including, naturally, The Ronnie Wood Band – before joining the rock band, Reef, in 2014.
But his confession in court this week suggests he’s not making megabucks from his performing career. Like many a nepo baby before him, he also dabbled in modelling, appearing in a campaign for Liam Gallagher’s Pretty Green clothing label in 2013.
Jesse is Ronnie’s eldest biological son with his first wife, Krissy Findlay. She was an infamous groupie who had affairs with Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and two Beatles: John Lennon and George Harrison. She met Ronnie in 1964, aged 16, and married him in 1971. She struggled with substance abuse issues, appearing at Kingston Crown Court in 1975 on charges of possessing cocaine, and died in 2005 of a suspected Valium overdose.
Ronnie has also been frank about his own extended battle with alcoholism, doing eight stints in rehab before becoming sober in 2010.
Like his parents, Jesse had a reputation for being a wild child before he settled down with Cotton, whom he met at a nightclub in Ibiza in 2011. Cotton recalled on the Table Manners podcast in 2021 that their first date involved him turning up at her house “with a bottle of vodka”. His showbiz dating history included actor Kate Hudson and models Kate Moss and Jasmine Guinness.
“I used to like to party, I’m not going to lie to you,” he told the Evening Standard in 2016. He became sober in 2011, aged 35, meaning he and his father went through that process together.
Jesse reportedly went through another difficult period after his divorce from Cotton. An insider told the Daily Mail last year, “he’s been through a rough patch emotionally”. The insider said Jesse had been “lifted” by his new relationship with Gregory, but that clearly hasn’t solved all his problems – not least his financial woes and now, his six-month driving ban for speeding.
Jesse might not match up to his icon father in musical terms, but he seems to have a similar penchant for rock ’n’ roll excess.
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