Penny Lancaster has opened up about her hidden health battle that made school ‘extremely difficult’ after her condition was not diagnosed until later in life
Penny Lancaster opened up about her school life (Image: Getty)
Penny Lancaster has revealed details about a health struggle that led to a challenging chapter in her life. The wife of Sir Rod Stewart only discovered she had dyslexia much later in life.
The NHS describes this form of neurodivergence as a widespread learning difficulty that primarily affects reading, writing and spelling abilities.
The model, who was raised in Essex, praised her supportive parents for helping her cope with school life. She explained: “I went through undiagnosed dyslexia, bullying and then trauma from sexual attacks from when I was younger, so I wouldn’t have got through it without their support.”
The 54-year-old made these revelations during an appearance on RTE radio in Ireland while discussing her new memoir titled Someone Like Me.
When host Miriam O’Callaghan questioned whether dyslexia made her school experience particularly challenging, she responded: “Oh, it made it extremely hard because I was eager to go to school and learn but I just couldn’t learn the same way as everyone else was learning.
Rod Stewart and Penny Lancaster married back in 2007 (Image: Getty)
“And it wasn’t recognised at school, it was just like, if you can’t learn this way, you can’t learn at all. Therefore I was dismissed and kind of put to the back of the class and ignored and just assumed that I would not make anything of myself.
“If you can’t pass exams then you can’t flourish in society sort of attitude and that grew an enormous amount of fear for me and I felt like I was bright and I was well behaved but I just couldn’t get along in a lot of the classes.”
Discussing the most challenging part of her dyslexia battle, the Loose Women panelist revealed: “Reading out loud was one of my absolute terrors and so English was most problematic for me.
“So the idea that I’ve now written a book and did my audio and actually had to read that out loud to produce that book was quite an accomplishment for me I have to say.”
Penny, who has two children with Rod, has achieved great success in life and spoke about having many pinch me moments.
Penny has no bad feelings towards her former bullies (Image: Getty)
She added: “From being Penelope at school that had dyslexia and was told I wouldn’t make anything of myself and now I have a book out, full circle.”
During the conversation, Penny also mentioned that bullies targeted her for going against the so-called norm in school. At the time, she was training to be a ballet dancer and was teased for being “neat and tidy”, dressing differently, and refusing to swear.
Her mum advised her not to change to fit in, and Penny added: “I guess bullies need to single out someone who is a bit different so one of my differences was not only being taller than the girls but taller than the boys.”
Despite the challenges it presented, Penny harboured no resentment towards her tormentors.
She explained: “You have to use your empathy and look from a different perspective and understand that there is something going on in that bullies’ life why they are so miserable that they have to eject that unpleasant behaviour on someone else.
“There must be something upsetting going on in their world.”
