Life after having Jagger's baby

Amazonian perfectly describes six-foot-plus Brazilian model Luciana Morad, the woman who almost four years ago made headlines all over the world when she revealed she was expecting Mick Jagger's baby. It was her first child - and his seventh.

In just a few days their son, Lucas, will be three and the birthday has sparked a dramatic change of mind in the woman who once claimed Sao Paulo would be her home for ever.

"Mick plays a big role in Lucas's life, they talk all the time and see as much of each other as possible," she says. "Because of that relationship I hope to move to Britain with him soon.

"My work is here in Brazil, but I want Lucas to grow up knowing his brothers and sisters and speaking English, so he can talk to his dad and family more.

"The good part of being a single parent is that I have him all to myself. I am his mother and his hero. But it is important that Lucas is aware of who his father is. He is half-English and of course I want him to know and understand every part of his heritage."

Morad is a supremely confident woman, apparently unscarred by the media scrum which engulfed her life four years ago. Back then, she revealed she'd been on a few dates with Jagger - then still married to Jerry Hall - and, in a series of revealing interviews, told the world that she was expecting their baby.

Only now does she feel able to talk about those ''harrowing'' months, as she describes them. "I cried every day of my pregnancy," she says. "I was so scared when I was pregnant. I was scared of everything.

"I had such a bad time with Press, friends, and I fought with my mother," she says. "I know people interpreted events as if I was some kind of marriage-breaker but I know what it was. I was very vulnerable when people were saying rude things about me, but I was respectful of Mick and I knew he was on my side.''

It's by no means certain that Mick would have shared that sentiment at the time, but there's no doubting that he's been a strong support for her as she brings up Lucas alone. Not least in the financial settlement he offered her.

Under the terms of the agreement, Morad can reveal nothing about the settlement, but she does say that she did not buy her house with the resulting money. The spacious four-bedroom detached home arrived courtesy of the lucrative two-year television contract she has landed as presenter of SuperPop, a five-times-a-week, late-night chat show with the fastest-growing audience in Brazil. (A recent charity special attracted a record audience of 28 million.)

"Let's just say I'm making more than Lucas's settlement," she says with a laugh. Brazilian press reports suggest she earns £10,000 a month, plus perks, of which the rent-free house is one.

The property may not have been bought by Mick but she certainly owes him her career. After all, her fling with him gave her a notoriety that got her the audition for SuperPop, as she cheerfully acknowledges. "They wanted someone with a famous name to attract viewers, so they asked me," she says.

She went after the job with single-minded determination - even having laser surgery to correct her myopia so she could read the Autocue.

She chose the house, on a security-fenced estate patrolled by armed guards, because it's close to her television studio and it's safe. "Its high security is an attraction," she explains (Brazil has one of the highest rates of kidnapping in the world). "And the area looks very British, particularly the local school. This place reminds me of my first apartment, in Paris. It's kind of old and European." The house is light and airy with ochre walls beneath a burntorange roof. There are huge hand-hewn hardwood pillars and beams, and a large through-thewall fireplace. The terracotta floor tiles gleam, and there is an intoxicating smell of polish.

Morad has a nanny to take care of Lucas while she is working, a housekeeper, a secretary, plus a once-a-week pool cleaner and gardener. The television studio provides a stylist, hairdresser, make-up artist and chauffeurdriven car. There are pictures of Lucas all over the house. He looks out from shelves, chests of drawers, over the fireplace, even a calendar that Morad has had printed for friends and relatives. And, hanging on the wall, is a big framed photograph of a young Jagger at a Stones concert at Altamont, California, in 1969. "I wasn't even born then," says Morad with a mischievous grin.

There is a striking likeness between father and son. "Mick is a very nice and sweet person, and at no time in the past years have I ever sought to sell a story on him. I've been desperate to tell everyone that I didn't get pregnant on purpose. But people who didn't know me were very swift to judge me, and I learned that you must never do that.''

Like Jerry, for example? "She is a wonderful woman and her family are wonderful," Morad says. "I have met some of them and I have to say Jerry has done a very good job. Her kids are so polite.

"Lucas is already so like his dad - he stands in a similar way and just sings all the time. He has my eyes, but he's got Mick's pout. He recognises Mick on TV, and he goes up to the screen and says Da Da. Every time I look at Lucas I see his father's genes. A great boy and a great man. Mick is such a good father too. I hope Lucas will get to spend more time with him as he grows."

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