Lady Penny Lancaster-Stewart has been diagnosed with dyslexia.
The 46-year-old model has "always known" she had the common learning difficulty – which can cause problems with reading, writing and spelling – but recently had the news confirmed, and she has praised her husband, Sir Rod Stewart, for giving her "so much confidence" to address the diagnosis.
She said: "He has given me so much confidence. I’m dyslexic, something I’ve always known and kept secret until I recently got diagnosed.
"My dad used to take me to extra English classes after one teacher said to him, ‘Why bother, she’ll never amount to anything.’
"That just totally floored him."
Penny admitted she felt like "bursting into tears" after 73-year-old Rod inspired her to read out a pledge at a charity bash because it was such a "big deal" for her.
She said: "Rod has never made me feel in any way like I can’t do things. I was asked to read a pledge at a charity event.
"I was in a panic but he said, ‘Go on, Pen, you can do it.’
"I stood up and I could hear him cheering for me and I read out the words. I didn’t get them all right but I read them and I felt like bursting into tears afterwards because it was such an emotional pledge and a big deal for me."
Penny also admitted Rod – who she has sons Alistair, 12, and Aiden, six, with – doesn’t let their kids get away with being "rude" to her, and if they are he puts a lock on their Xbox games console.
Speaking to the Mail on Sunday newspaper, she added: "Rod obsesses about keeping the house in order. The boys have an Xbox room on which he has put a lock and a cardboard sign which will say things like, ‘No entry. You left the lights on’ or ‘You’ve been rude to Mummy.’ "
Penny and Rod renewed their wedding vows last summer at an intimate ceremony in the grounds of their 18th-century home in Essex, south east England, and she admitted afterwards there wasn’t a "dry eye" in the house.
She said: "It was a given I was going to cry – everyone expects it of me.
"And then Rod got a tear, everybody did. It was like a domino effect."
Penny Lancaster-Stewart diagnosed with dyslexia
