Truth behind how Dave Grohl secretly fathered a child outside his devoted 21-year marriage – and reason friends say he did something so ‘uncharacteristic’ and ‘tacky’, reveals ALISON BOSHOFF

What goes on tour, stays on tour – in other words, it doesn’t really count. That’s the cardinal rule of rock and roll that keeps the smartest women watching from the sidelines when their men are on stage.

The temptations of a tour are so numerous and the culture so corrupt that all but the most monkish are tempted to wander off.

But Foo Fighters singer Dave Grohl, the former drummer for Nirvana, was destined to be one of the good guys. He was routinely described as the nicest guy in rock and was married to ex-model and producer Jordyn Blum for 21 years.

That’s why the news that he impregnated another woman has shocked so many. Grohl’s shocking statement on Tuesday night, perhaps overshadowed by the pivotal Trump-Harris televised debate, has sent many fans into a frenzy.

It read: ‘I recently became the father of a new baby daughter, born out of wedlock. I plan to be a loving and supportive parent to her. I love my wife and my children, and I am doing everything I can to earn their trust and forgiveness.

“We are grateful for your attention to all the children involved as we move forward together.”

But will Blum, 48, find it in her heart to “move on” with the man she married in 2003? It would take superhuman forbearance, even though she knew she was married to a man who had lived the rock star lifestyle to the fullest, including the flirting.

Over the past two decades, she and Grohl have created a beautiful family with daughters Violet (18), Harper (15) and Ophelia (10), who looked enviably strong and ‘normal’.

My home was a mansion in Encino, LA, with a swimming pool, a recording studio, a basketball court, and a miniature golf course in the yard.

For celebrities, it was all rather subdued, which seems to have been intentional. After all, Grohl, the godfather of grunge from his Nirvana days, had become very homely in middle age.

He said he liked to slow-cook on the BBQ while working on music in the studio. ‘There’s something to be said for recording studios that smell like your mum’s roast on Sunday – it puts everyone at ease.’

There was also a large holiday home in Hawaii, but life was deliberately low-key, given his £250million fortune. He once said that he woke up every day, chose a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt from his collection of about 30, made breakfast and helped his daughters get ready for school.

The highlight of the day was when they were all back home and he took them horseback riding or watching TV with them. “When you have children, you see life through different eyes. You feel love more deeply and maybe you’re a little more compassionate,” he said.

His late mother called him a “Superdad.” He said fatherhood simply changed him.

He certainly seemed like a different person. In 2004, a visitor to his recording studio (not yet in his home) discovered that the Wi-Fi password was “pussy” and that there was a large poster of British pin-up Kelly Brook on the wall. Grohl also said that he had to throw away the band’s porn magazines before singer Norah Jones saw them, which may have been a joke.

Jordyn Blum was familiar with this side of him. She’s not his first wife, and before they got together, he had a reputation as a womanizer. He married photographer Jennifer Leigh Youngblood in 1994—the year Nirvana bandmate Kurt Cobain committed suicide. They split three years later. “I was 25,” he reflected in 1999, “and my wife was younger. We weren’t ready to get married.” At the time, he was dating Louise Post of the band Veruca Salt—who accused him of cheating on her with actress Winona Ryder and dozens of other women.

Another friend was American snowboarder Tina Basich, who had to call him over and over for five weeks until he picked up her phone and admitted he had moved on. She said: ‘I was really in love with him. Break-ups suck. Rockstar break-ups suck the worst. All I got was a five-minute phone call after five weeks of calling and trying to get a hold of him, because I just had to know if these rumours were true.’

The rumors may have worried actress Kari Wuhrer, his next girlfriend. She was followed by Melissa Auf der Maur of the band Hole, with whom he dated until 2001. No wonder his late mother said, “I was worried about women. My biggest fear was that Madonna would steal him.”

Moreover, he was openly grateful for the groupie scene on tour. In a 2002 interview – given after he began dating Blum – he said, “Groupies come to the back. They know what they want; they know what the band wants. It just happens. It’s that easy.”

In another interview he said: ‘There’s a difference between true love and infatuation, lust and a one-night stand… I do like a good encounter, you know.’

So where does Blum fit into this picture? She came into his life in 2001, in the midst of this hedonistic period, and they began dating seriously the following year.

The first meeting was in 2001 at the Sunset Marquis Whiskey Bar in West Hollywood. Grohl was drinking with his Foo Fighters bandmate Taylor Hawkins. He said, “Taylor was the eye-catcher. This bombshell comes out and starts talking to Taylor.

“I’m wearing sneakers, no socks, dirty shorts, and a dirty T-shirt.” She waved her friend Jordyn over. I was like, “Oh my God. No chance!” So I have a drink and act like an ass. And by the end of the night I was pissed and I stared at her and said, “You’re my future ex-wife.”

“So she gave me her number: ‘Jordyn, your future ex-wife.’”

But Grohl “wasn’t ready for a serious relationship” and “stopped calling.” Everything changed when Hawkins was hospitalized in a coma after a heroin overdose in August 2001. (He died of a heart attack in March 2022 while the Foo Fighters—whose hit “Everlong” has become a popular wedding song—were on tour.)

Grohl said: ‘I was watching snooker and this gum commercial came on – a girl walking down the subway, pickpocketing people. All of a sudden I thought, ‘That’s that girl Jordyn, that’s that chick!’ And over the next few days I started having these dreams about this life I’d been thinking about, dreams about settling down.

“I thought, ‘I’m not going to wait another minute, because life is too f***ing short, man. It’s too delicate.’ The day we got home, I called her and she was like, ‘Wow, I never thought I’d hear from you again.’ So I took her to a restaurant… and that was that.”

Until this week’s extraordinary confession. Perhaps there were signs that something was amiss this summer when Grohl was unusually grumpy at Wimbledon with a dour Blum. Perhaps the impending disaster was the reason he took a grumpy, ill-judged jab at Taylor Swift days later, asking if she and her band had played live on the Eras tour. That outburst was uncharacteristic of a man who has friends all over the world, in every genre and part of the music industry.

Most attributed his irritability to his attempts to regain his balance after the death of his best friend Hawkins. A few months later, his mother, Virginia, who, he often said, was the most important person in the world to him, also died.

Friends believe Grohl did something as “unusual” and “tasteless” as getting a girl pregnant because he was in the grip of that dual grief.

It remains to be seen whether his wife will be as understanding – or whether the humorous prediction that she will one day become his ex-wife will come true.