Gary Numan believes how he and his fan-turned-wife, Gemma O’Neill, first got together “may be illegal now.”
The “Cars” singer explained to The Times, in an interview published Wednesday, that he met his now-partner at a fan event around 1980 when she was 12 and he was 22.
O’Neill was 18 by the time she and the 28-year-old rock star crossed paths again six years later, he claimed, and they got to know each other as she continued attending his concerts.
“That’s how I attracted her, which I think is illegal now,” he quipped, noting that he contacted a fan club O’Neill was part of to get her phone number in 1992.
The artist wanted to give O’Neill his condolences, “which, again, may be illegal” after the death of her mother, he told the outlet.
Numan confessed that when he rang the young fan, she “put the phone down” because “she thought it was somebody playing a cruel trick.”
When Numan called back, O’Neill quizzed him to make sure he was the real deal.
The pair then went on their first date at a chain restaurant, with Numan recalling, “I took her to a Little Chef because I’m very down to earth. I don’t do all that flash, rich man, pop star stuff.”
He and O’Neill tied the knot in 1997 and went on to welcome daughters Raven, 23, Persia, 21, and Echo, 19.
Years before their union, O’Neill once told a career counselor she was “going to marry Gary Numan.”
In 1997, she spoke to The Independent about how their age-gap romance came to be.
“I was 11 and it started as a schoolgirl crush — a big crush,” she said at the time, adding that she met Numan as a preteen.
“My dad worked at Warner Bros, which the Beggar’s Banquet label belonged to, and he arranged for me to meet Gary and get a single autographed,” O’Neill explained.
She shared, “I was completely overcome, I couldn’t talk. I was crying, and I told him I really loved him.”
O’Neill characterized their first date as “really cute,” adding that her “schoolgirl crush turned quite quickly into real feelings.”
She continued, “I kept my feet firmly on the ground, though. I remember thinking, ‘This is really, really nice, he’s really, really friendly, and it’s lovely, but if it stops tomorrow I’m going to be all right about it.’”
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