When it comes to life’s knocks, Noel Gallagher has never been one to look back in anger.
He’s shouldered a childhood marred by abuse to one of the world’s most notorious cases of sibling rivalry – with the 56-year-old always seeming to roll with it.
He’s now doing the same as a single man after splitting from his wife Sara MacDonald after 22 years with the publicist, by jumping back into the party scene he was notorious for during his Nineties heyday.
Appearing on Matt Morgan’s latest podcast episode, the rock’n’roll star told how he’s embracing single life – which has included a recent dinner with Nineties supermodel Cindy Crawford – and how he loves Amsterdam’s super-strength drugs.
Following his divorce from MacDonald, 52, the High Flying Birds frontman is also busy sorting out his new “bachelor pad” in Maida Vale, London, after growing disillusioned with the “isolation” of country life at his now-empty country pile in Hampshire.
It has been reported that MacDonald walked away with their £8m property – along with an estimated £20m – after the former couple reached their divorce settlement.
Noel Gallagher with his now ex-wife, Sarah MacDonald— (AFP via Getty Images)
Gallagher said: “When I finish this tour I’ve got about five months off. I’m looking forward to it because I’m moving into my new place in London so I need to get my new place looking good.
“I’ve done all the planning. It’s going to be ready to move into for Christmas, but it won’t really feel like a home until you’ve lived there for six or seven months.
“I’m looking forward to having January to the end of May off... and I’ll be living in London. I haven’t lived in London for about four years and I’m really f***ing looking forward to getting back into London and being around.
“I’m always in London, but I’ve lived out in Hampshire in 2019. And because I can’t drive I can’t just go out and do anything I have to plan everything days in advance.”
Party days: Noel with his then-wife, Megan Mathews, in 1997— (Nikos Vinieratos/Shutterstock)
He continued: “I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be in London and I can just nip to the shops and if I’m out of bread I can nip to Gail’s bakery. I’ve missed it, and I can’t wait to get back into it – spontaneous nights in the pub, do you know what I f***ing mean?
“Whereas when you’re out in the country, and particularly when you’re living on your own in the country, it’s quite an isolated life. I’m not knocking it, because I have really f***ing enjoyed the solitude of it, particularly with my personal stuff I’ve had on my plate the last couple of years, so it’s been good.
“But I’m really looking forward to getting back amongst f***ing people.”
Gallagher’s move will stir up memories among his Oasis of his days at Supernova Heights – his terraced base for non-stop parties on Steele’s Road in London’s Belsize Park.
The property, which had its name etched into the glass over the front door, became infamous for wild bashes thrown by the singer and his then-wife, Meg Mathews, 57, with guests including Gallagher’s old pal Kate Moss – who reportedly lived there for several weeks – and members of The Charlatans and the Sex Pistols.
Noel with Meg Mathews Kate Moss, Lisa Moorish and guests at the launch of Sound Republic in October 1998— (Getty Images)
Gallagher was recently reunited with Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones at a dinner thrown by Madonna’s manager, Guy Oseary – with other guests including Beck, Matthew McConaughey and Cindy Crawford.
Gallagher seemed particularly excited by the former supermodel’s presence, describing her as “fit as f***”.
He said: “My mate Guy Oseary, who used to be U2’s manager and who is Madonna’s manager… I called him and said, ‘I’m in town for a couple of days,’ and he said, ‘Do you want to come to my house for dinner? I’ll get a couple of people over.’
“So I said, ‘Alright.’ And I go to this dinner and there was me, obviously, Beck, Steve Jones, Matthew McConaughey and – listen to this – Cindy Crawford. How about that?
“I’d met Beck a few times, and we were chinwagging because we have both co-written the new Black Keys album, so we were chatting about that.
“And Beck’s bass player was the bass player on [High Flying Birds album] Who Built The Moon?, so we were chatting about him, and then of course Jonesy is one of my favourite people of all time, and I was chatting to him about that Danny Boyle Pistols biopic thing. It was just a good dinner. He turned up on his motorbike.
“Then this woman appears at this dinner, and she’s like, ‘I’m Cindy,’ and I’m like, ‘F***ing hell – that’s Cindy Crawford’. “I couldn’t believe it. She is f***ing fit as f**k – fit as fuuuu*k.”
Noel Gallagher with his ex-wife Sara MacDonald (far right) in 2015, with George Clooney, Rande Gerber and Cindy Crawford— (Dave Benett/Getty)
Gallagher admitted on another of Morgan’s recent podcasts he was “extremely hungover” after a raucous night on his tour bus – and recalled how he loved a “f***ing far out” weed vaporiser in Amsterdam called a “volcano”.
“It’s quite the thing,” he said. “It’s the same theory as vape, where it’s pure weed smoke. It’s f***ing far out, let me tell you.
“I’ll get you on a Volcano and push you in a canal and run off. I don’t have to be careful with that stuff – I just buy the most expensive thing in the shop.”
I don’t think it’s possible to get me too high
Gallagher joked it would be worth “deliberately getting too high” just to try out fellow musician Neil Young’s cure for being “too high” – which consists of eating black peppercorns.
But Gallagher boasted: “I don’t think it’s possible to get me too high.”
Since his separation from MacDonald was announced, the “Wonderwall” songwriter has been spotted out and about in London, living it up at his favourite haunts including the Chiltern Firehouse.
He has also joked about morphing into “Adventure Dad” while holidaying with his kids in the south of France, Iceland, and the Amalfi Coast in Italy on a recent string of holidays.
Gallagher during his High Flying Birds tour in June 2023— (Getty Images)
This jet-set lifestyle is a far cry from Noel’s tumultuous upbringing in Manchester, where he and his brothers Liam and Paul were terrorised by their alcoholic father, Thomas.
In the documentary Supersonic, Gallagher told how his dad “beat the talent into him”.
Both he and Paul – the eldest Gallagher brother – struggled with stammers that were made worse by their dad’s abuse. Their mum Peggy later filed for a legal separation and raised the three boys by herself.
Despite the trauma, the singer-songwriter claimed he never acknowledged or discussed the abuse with a doctor or therapist.
“My dad used to beat the living daylights out of me,” he said. “I’ve never felt compelled to either talk about it or write about it. I know that I think it’s no one else’s business. You can’t let that kind of thing affect you in any way, because then you’re carrying that weight all the way through life.”
That’s not to say he doesn’t hold on to a grudge or two.
Noel (left) and his younger brother Liam— (PA)
The notorious Oasis split in 2009 concluded a long history of punch-ups and rows between the estranged Gallagher brothers.
Four years earlier, Noel had hinted that it was a brawl in 2000, sparked by Liam questioning the paternity of his older brother’s daughter, Anaïs, 23, which had soured their relationship perhaps irrevocably.
“I’ve never forgiven him because he’s never apologised,” Noel told Q Magazine in 2005, breaking his silence on the incident for the first time. “He’s my brother. I hope he’s reading this and realises that. He’s my brother but he’s at arm’s length until he apologises for what he’s done.”
Noel Gallagher with his daughter Anais— (Getty Images)
Despite all their public sparring, the relationship between the brothers Gallagher appeared to have thawed in recent years, fuelling fans’ dreams the Nineties may make another comeback with Oasis reuniting.
In June, Liam reached out to his brother on X/Twitter by writing: “Listen Noel I know you check my tweets call me I’m actually concerned about you we all are you don’t seem yourself. C’mon big guy pick it up.”
Noel admitted earlier this year he and MacDonald came to the decision to divorce after coming to a “crossroads” in their lives.
“It’s not uncommon for people who have been in long-term relationships to go their separate ways in their fifties,” he told the Big Issue.
“I know a lot of people in the same boat as me and Sara. Particularly after the pandemic.”
He and MacDonald announced their separation in January this year, in a brief statement that said their two children, Donovan, 16, and 13-year-old Sonny, remained their priority.
