ALISON BOSHOFF: Proof that Jerry and Mick are better friends than ever, especially now he doesn’t have to pay her anymore

What a picture of joyful family unity Rolling Stone Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall create.

Together for 23 years – and sharing four adult children – both recently beamed with joy as they took to Instagram to show off their latest grandchild with son James and daughter Georgia May.

The body language of the couple – who broke up 24 years ago – speaks volumes. His arm is lovingly draped around his ex’s shoulder, while she beams at the camera.

If you look closer, you’ll see that they’re also holding hands.

It’s a world away from the time when Jerry – bruised and emotional after Mick impregnated Brazilian model Luciana Morad in 1999 – described him as ‘a sick, addictive womanizer who made me unhappy’.

Because what was a bitter breakup has somehow become a loving friendship. Mick and Jerry – once torn by arguments over his endless cheating, not to mention the protracted bickering over her financial arrangement after their relationship ended – now head the most unlikely happy family.

“They really hang out together,” says a friend, adding: “I’ve never heard Mick say a negative word about her.”

They are so pleased with each other’s company that I am told Jerry will be invited to Mick’s complex of Balinese-style villas in Mustique for as much or as little of the holiday season as she wants.

Traditionally, Mick – who has eight children by five wives – invites all his descendants and their families to join him on the Caribbean island where he has had a home since the 1970s. This year Jerry is also high on the list.

The late Princess Margaret sold Mick on the joys of Mustique when they were at a party together.

Today, ties to the island run deep for the Jaggers, and Jerry has years of fond memories there. Indeed, their son Gabriel met his Swiss socialite wife, Anouk Winzenried, in Mustique, where her family also has a place.

It’s something of a triumph for 67-year-old Jerry to be at the center of Mick’s life again. “They get along great,” says an old friend. “Of course it’s better now, because she doesn’t ask him for money, and he doesn’t have to give her money either.”

A cynical view perhaps. But it’s fair to say that since Jerry’s marriage to media titan Rupert Murdoch ended last summer, she and Mick have become increasingly close.

Part of this is undoubtedly due to his support of her after a brutal breakup. Jerry was reeling when Murdoch ended their six-year marriage by email.

But money, as always with the famously thrifty Mick, matters. The fact is that Jerry, who once had to compete in vain for her share of the family home in Richmond, South West London, is now very much at ease.

Her settlement with Murdoch was somewhere between $50 million and $250 million, and she also got an £11 million house in Oxfordshire and a house near Nice.

The £10 million she eventually received from Mick seems like peanuts in comparison.

Jerry sincerely welcomed Mick’s emotional advice and friendship. For example, after thinking that the CCTV at her home in the Cotswolds was sending images back to Murdoch’s security detail, Jerry was delighted when Mick came to the rescue and his people ‘took care of it’.

I’m told that Christmas in the Caribbean with Mick is far from Jerry’s only invitation; Many friends in Britain, including Bill Wyman’s wife Suzanne Accosta, with whom she is close, have also asked her to spend the holidays with them.

Extraordinarily, another close friend is Bianca Jagger – the only woman to whom Mick is legally married – who lives in London. The couple previously rang in the new year together. Jerry even invited Bianca to her wedding to Murdoch.

Always a diplomat – and all too aware that a little sugar can be a powerful tool in keeping potential enemies at bay – Jerry has recently stepped up his efforts to build alliances with the other women in Mick’s life . I can reveal that she has taken Mick’s current girlfriend, the American dancer Melanie Hamrick, under her wing.

Melanie began a relationship with the Rolling Stone in 2014, not long after the shocking death by suicide of his previous girlfriend L’Wren Scott. Today, the couple has a six-year-old son, Deveraux.

Melanie, 36, was once a member of the New York Ballet and has embarked on a new career as a writer of Mills & Boon bonkbusters.

She is described as gentle and undemanding and has been sporting an engagement ring since spring this year. I revealed that Mick has no intention of getting married again, and the ring is just a symbol of her ‘status’.

It’s clearly a potential romantic minefield. But luckily Melanie has Jerry to guide her.

A friend said: ‘Melanie will turn to Jerry for advice about her relationship. Jerry was one of the first people she told when she and Mick got ‘engaged.’

No doubt Jerry advised Melanie about her ‘engagement’ with memories of her own Balinese wedding ceremony to Mick in 1990. She thought it was desperately romantic – but it turned out to be an avoidance of Mick’s fear of commitment, and was not legal. binding.

When told she could only get an annulment instead of a divorce, she said with admirable understatement, “I didn’t like the idea of ​​annulling the divorce after 23 years and four children. It seemed a bit rude.”

As Jerry later reflected, Mick was a great father, but a lousy husband.

A friend says: ‘No one knows Mick as well as Jerry. And no one knows how to be as successful with him as she does. She wrote the book about how to deal with the infidelity, and how much space you can give him.’

It looks like Jerry doesn’t have a new man – yet. In its place is a beloved new Springer Spaniel puppy, Spot, and she focuses on her children and grandchildren. Eldest son James has a baby with wife Anoushka – the child pictured with his grandparents last week – although it is said they split some time ago and are now divorced.

Daughter Lizzie has a son Eugene, three, with American documentary producer Christopher Behlau. And of course Mick’s daughter Jade has adult daughters, Amba and Assisi, who made him a great-grandfather some time ago.

A friend says: ‘Mick and Jerry had problems when they separated, mainly involving the house. But the fact is that they are each other’s longest relationship and their grandchildren have a great bond.’

And now that all past tensions over money have finally melted away, it adds to the new-found harmony between them. Mick likes his women to be independent, and Jerry certainly is now.

The friend adds, “To be honest, Jerry wasn’t all that enthusiastic about working during the Jagger years. She would do work if the money was ridiculously good.

‘She would earn between half a million and a million a year – and then very easily manage to spend it all.

‘Now I’m sure she’s very happy that she doesn’t have to work anymore. She likes to spend money, she likes all the good things in life, and she likes rich people. And now she is finally one herself.’