Rod Stewart’s son — once called ‘rotten, moody and entirely ridiculous’ — is no stranger to legal troubles

Rod Stewart’s son — once called ‘rotten, moody and entirely ridiculous’ — is no stranger to legal troubles
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LONDON – JUNE 30: XXX attends the The Serpentine Gallery Summer P at the Serpentine Gallery on June 30, 2005 in London, England. The annual party is this year held in Serpentine’s new architectural commission, created by architect Alvaro Siza and his collaborator Eduardo Souto de Moura. (Photo by MJ Kim/Getty Images)

Rod Stewart and his oldest son Sean Stewart reportedly put on a display of celebrity self-entitlement that takes a page from Sean’s documented history of fighting, reality TV antics and behaving like the “obnoxious prince” of entertainment royalty.

The British rock legend, who turns 75 next Friday, and his 39-year-old son got into an altercation with a security guard after they were denied entry to someone else’s private party at the posh Breakers hotel in Palm Beach, Florida, the Palm Beach Post reported.

Now, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, who was knighted at Buckingham Palace in 2016, is making international headlines for the first time in a while after he and his son were charged with misdemeanor battery in the incident near the children’s area of the hotel.

The father and son have been ordered to appear in Palm Beach County court in February, after witnesses told police that Sean Stewart shoved the 33-year-old guard, and Rod Stewart followed up by punching him in the chest, the Palm Beach Post reported. Rod Stewart claimed the guard had become argumentative, but police say video surveillance shows that he and his son were the primary aggressors.

Rod Stewart, who has homes in London, Beverly Hills and Palm Beach County, later “apologized for his behavior in the incident,” an affidavit said, according to the Miami Herald. The report added that there was no indication of alcohol or drug use by Rod or Sean Stewart.

Perhaps surprisingly, Rod Stewart, who cultivated a “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” bad boy rocker persona, doesn’t have a history of legal run-ins — except for arrests in the early 1960s for participating in nuclear disarmament protests, according to a biography.

Sean Stewart, the son of singer Rod Stewart and Alana Collins, is seen in a police booking photo after his arrest for entering a restricted area Miami International Airport February 17, 2015 in Miami, Florida. Stewart reportedly rode a luggage conveyor belt to a restricted section of the airport. (Photo by Miami-Dade Police Department via Getty Images)

The same can’t be said for Sean Stewart, who is Rod Stewart’s son with his first wife Alana Stewart. Rod Stewart has famously had a string of romances and marriages throughout his life and fathered eight children with five different women.

Sean opened up on “Celebrity Rehab” and in recent interviews about his abuse of heroin and prescription drugs and his struggles with addiction. Sean, who reportedly tried his hand at launching a fashion line, also has faced multiple accusations of fighting and assaulting people at parties and Los Angeles-area nightspots.

His most recent arrest was in 2015 for “taking a joke too far” at Miami International Airport, as he explained to the Daily Mail. He got on a luggage carousel and rode it into an area that was off-limits to passengers. He later paid a fine, and the case was closed, according to Miami-Dade County court records.

But it was no joke when Sean was sentenced to 90 days in jail in 2002, when he was 22. He had pleaded no contest to charges of assaulting a 19-year-old man outside a Malibu restaurant, the Los Angeles Times reported. The fight was broken up by former “Superman” actor Dean Cain who called 911.

Sean Stewart and his attorney appear in Malibu Superior Court to answer charges he attacked a man outside a Malibu restaurant in February 2002. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

Sean also was ordered to attend anger management classes, but those lessons didn’t appear to take hold because he was twice accused of assault in separate lawsuits five years later. In one of the 2007 cases, a married couple alleged that Stewart and his friends, who had been riding in a Rolls Royce, confroted them outside a Hollywood Hills party and began punching them and throwing bricks at them and their vehicle.

Sean settled this lawsuit, as well as the other from 2007. In the second case, he and some friends were accused of attacking a man outside a Hollywood nightclub and leaving him with a broken nose.

That same year, Sean appeared on the A&E reality TV show “Sons of Hollywood,” alongside his lifelong friend Randy Spelling, the son of the late mega-producer Aaron Spelling and the brother of Tori Spelling. In a press release, A&E said the show was to chronicle the day-to-day lives of showbiz scions who are “living the dream” but who are committed to “stepping out from the imposing shadows of their parents and forging their own identities,” a review by the Hollywood Reporter said.

But this and other reviews were pretty scathing. The show’s first installment featured Stewart, Spelling and another rich male friend hanging out at Las Vegas’ ultra-trendy Palms Hotel, “where they eat, chase girls, argue and play golf,” the Hollywood Reporter said.

Sean Stewart was singled out for his “obnoxious prince” behavior by writer Virginia Heffernan in the New York Times: “Mr. Stewart comes across as rotten, moody and entirely ridiculous. Nowhere in his dealings do we see Rod Stewart’s scrappy wit and enlightened roguish pose.”

“Sons of Hollywood’ only lasted one season. Sean Stewart made another attempt at reality TV in 2015 when he starred in “Stewarts and Hamiltons.” The E! docuseries followed the lives of Sean’s mother, Alana Stewart, his stepfather, actor George Hamilton, and their large blended family. But the cable channel canceled the show after only eight episodes, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Sean Stewart shows off his new tattoos at a fashion show in Los Angeles in 2003. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

As for Sean Stewart’s addiction struggles, he appeared on “Celebrity Rehab” in 2008. He claimed that he had stopped doing drugs several years earlier, telling OK magazine that he agreed to participate in the show to “help others out and deal with some other issues in my life that I have to deal with.”

In a 2014 interview for Brandi Glanville’s podcast, Sean said he had once done “enough drugs to kill Hollywood.” He also said, “I’ve done my partying.”

But he said he didn’t regret his past mistakes.

“Everyone goes through phases,” he said. “I’m glad I went through what I went through because I wouldn’t be the person I am today.”

It may be that Rod Stewart has some regrets about choices he made as a father. In his 2015 song, “Didn’t I,” Stewart sings as a father who had warned his child about the dangers of the Hollywood lifestyle.

“Didn’t I try to tell you that stuff’s gonna kill you / Oh, didn’t I? / But you thought it was cool / And I’m just an old fool,” Stewart sings. The single came on Stewart’s 30th studio album, “Blood Red Roses,” which he described as an intimate work he crafted for a few friends.

For his part, Sean Stewart said in that 2008 OK interview that he and his father have always had a great relationship. “We talk almost every single day and hang out when he’s in town,” he said, “We have breakfast and do father and son stuff, like play soccer.”


Rod Stewart’s son — once called ‘rotten, moody and entirely ridiculous’ — is no stranger to legal troubles

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