In June, Melanie Hamrick performed at the Metropolitan Opera House with one of the world’s greatest dance companies, American Ballet Theatre, in the most famous ballet of all time, “Swan Lake.” W magazine had recently pegged her as one of the “beautiful ballerinas of Instagram.’’ Her Facebook page was a breathless tribute to this high in her career.
“Next show Thursday night!’’ she wrote. “Almost time for ‘Swan Lake.’ So lucky and excited . . . !’’
Then, suddenly, Hamrick’s online presence went cold. She disappeared from the season’s final performances. Friends at ABT said she was having health issues and “female problems.’’
But it seems the brunette, who turned 30 in July, had more on her mind than pirouetting to Tchaikovsky.
Hamrick had just discovered she was pregnant by Rolling Stones legend Mick Jagger, whom she has been dating for two years. The baby is reportedly due in December.
While this will be Hamrick’s first child, it’s the 73-year-old rocker’s eighth. The baby will be a great-aunt or great-uncle from birth, as Jagger’s 44-year-old second daughter, Jade, is a grandmother to a 2-year-old. During their two-year relationship, the parents-to-be have rarely been in the same place, and the Sun has reported that the child won’t likely change things, as “Mick likes the arrangement they have and doesn’t want to be in another formal relationship.”
Here in New York, questions are swirling among the ballet community as to whether or not high-profile motherhood is ending Hamrick’s career.
Friends of the rocker say he has mixed emotions about the pregnancy. “He hasn’t responded to people sending him congratulations,’’ confides one pal. “Family is extremely important to him, and he is unhappy at the thought that when he should be teaching his kid to play catch, he’ll be 80 years old.’’
The last couple of years have been a whirlwind for the girl from Williamsburg, Va., who spent most of her life in rigorous dance training. Beginning ballet at age 3 at the Eastern Virginia School for the Performing Arts, she attended the strict Kirov Academy of Ballet in Washington, DC, and landed her first contract, with ABT, when she was 17.
Her life changed in February 2014, when ABT and the Stones were both touring in Tokyo, and some ballerinas were invited backstage after the concert. Jagger asked her to dinner, and the two wound up spending time together during the period they were both in Japan.
A year earlier, she had been engaged to dancer Jose Carreño, but his acceptance of a job as artistic director of Ballet San Jose at the end of 2013 put distance between them. The pair had been together for six years, and their wedding registry Web site is still up — but this was Mick Jagger. The singer has never had a problem whisking women away from major men; he famously stole Carla Bruni from Eric Clapton.
A month after Jagger and Hamrick met in Japan, tragedy put a roadblock in the way of the budding romance. L’Wren Scott, Jagger’s girlfriend of 13 years, who had longed to start a family with him, hanged herself with a black silk scarf after vacationing at Jagger’s Mustique home without him. This certainly wasn’t Jagger’s first infidelity, but friends say Scott had become aware of Hamrick, and she was depressed over her finances and the fact that she was turning 50.
Despite Jagger’s devastation, he and Hamrick kept in touch, and even had a rendezvous, where he met her father, John, a Stones fan, and gifted him with some band memorabilia. But the relationship had to stay under wraps.
The first week of June 2014, the rocker invited Hamrick to Zurich, where the Stones were performing. She told her bosses at ABT that she was ill, and hopped on a flight, meeting up at a suite in the Dolder Grand hotel.
Unfortunately for Hamrich, the paparazzi caught the pair in a state of afterglow on a hotel balcony. Members of ABT now whisper that the deception stymied a promotion for the promising ballerina.
“She is a wonderful dancer, but they were upset that she lied, and felt it showed a lack of dedication to her career,’’ an ABT insider tells The Post.
That same week, Hamrick suffered her own tragedy when her father died from cancer.
Over the next year, she and Jagger got together during breaks in their work. They were seen at NYC restaurants, and jetted off to his Mustique villa, where she reportedly met his family. They were together during the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, where she was taking a class at the city’s Opera Ballet.
Suddenly, Hamrick was flying first class, riding in chauffeured cars, wearing Chanel boots and sporting Céline bags. Jagger shared her interest in dance, studying ballet as well to keep in shape.
In March, Hamrick was spotted in Bogotá, Colombia, when the Stones kicked off their South American tour, and it was there, friends speculate, that they conceived their child. But in the months that followed, rumors swirled that Jagger was hooking up with 26-year-old model Masha Rudenko, flying her out to visit him and taking her to intimate dinners.
A Stones insider tells The Post that Hamrick was not seen again during the three-month tour, which coincided with ABT’s New York season. But they add that Jagger was tamer than on past tours.
“Mick [had] introduced L’Wren as his girlfriend; he never presented Melanie to us that way,’’ says the source. “But there were girls lining up each night to meet him, and he never appeared to be with any of them.’’
‘Family is extremely important to him, and he is unhappy at the thought that when he should be teaching his kid to play catch, he’ll be 80 years old.’
- one of the singer's confidantes
Of course, Jagger had dated Scott for over a decade and Hamrick for two years, so that might explain the lack of formal acknowledgment. But in July, Hamrick took a step toward solidifying her position by announcing the pregnancy.
This won’t be the first time Jagger has fathered a baby outside of a serious relationship. He impregnated model Marsha Hunt when he was in his 20s, and Luciana Morad in his 50s. In neither case did the baby escalate the relationship. At first he claimed Karis Hunt wasn’t his child and refused to pay the hospital bill when she was scalded with a cup of tea as a 2-year-old. Not until Marsha sued for paternity did he fork over child support. His fling with Morad fizzled before their son, Lucas, was born.
But now that Jagger is 73, he seems more focused on family. He and Karis, 45, have become close, and he sees 17-year-old Lucas regularly. They, along with Jade, his 44-year-old daughter with Bianca Jagger, and his four children with Jerry Hall — Lizzy, 32; James, 31; Georgia, 24; and Gabriel, 18 — all get together on family occasions. The notoriously parsimonious rocker, whose income is estimated at $360 million, even bought Karis a cottage in Los Angeles.
Though he refused to give in to Scott’s desire to have a child, Jagger’s offspring now give him comfort — all of them were by his side at the designer’s funeral — and the brood keeps growing. When Jade gave birth last year within a month of one of her own daughters, Assisi, now 24, Jagger bizarrely became a grandfather again (Karis also has two children), as well as a great-grandfather.
As for Hamrick, she posted on Instagram last month that she has plans to return to ABT. And a company source says she is still on the roster. But unlike rock stars, ballerinas can’t go on into their 70s, and by 35 they are often considered past their prime. If a dancer at ABT hasn’t been promoted to principal as she heads into her 30s, her future may be limited no matter how talented she is.
Many ballerinas eventually parlay their skills into alternative careers. Hamrick’s older sister Rachel danced internationally and became an instructor at Steps on the Upper West Side after an injury. She then used her knowledge for an entrepreneurial venture: The Flexistretcher helps dancers and athletes improve their flexibility.
Intentionally or not, Melanie, too, has secured her future. Jagger may be frugal, and there are no plans for Hamrick and him to live together, but he is clearly smitten with her and will be supporting her child.
London’s Daily Mirror reported that Jagger has agreed to pay Hamrick $15 million and buy her a home. A source told Page Six she wants to move to either Connecticut, where she has family, or Los Angeles, where Jagger spends a lot of time.
Though the relationship has been made up of pieced-together rendezvous, Hamrick claims it keeps things exciting.
“When we get together,” she told a pal, “it’s always like a honeymoon.”