Sting and Trudie Styler

But I think there is a hell of a lot of pride to be taken in the 20 years she has spent as the perfect rock wife (even though the 45 Versace people who spent a month making her wedding dress only got to work in 1992). I suppose she’d seen his first marriage fall apart and she realised Sting was the kind of man who required constant attention, inspiration and an irrepressible super-responsible and responsive woman who could attend to his every need and yet still be her own person. Can you blame her for perhaps overdoing it and turning out Mrs Sting eco warrior, Mrs Sting yoga queen, Mrs Sting I’m-still-an-actress, Mrs Sting I-was-cool-enough-to-do-a-stint-on-Friends-when-Friends-was-still-cool, Mrs Sting I’m-a-mother-of-four-and-I-travel-with-my-husband-everywhere-and-make-sure-he-has-a-cosy-mansion-to-live-in-so-he-doesn’t-need-to-go-anywhere-unless-it’s-to-save-a-rainforest?

In spite of all this, Trudie is pretty much universally despised, in the same way perhaps that Linda McCartney was always reviled. No one forgave Paul for marrying Linda and everyone marvelled at the fact that they managed to stay together when most celebrity marriages have the lifespan of a fruitfly. It took breast cancer for people to warm to her. Sadly, I think Mrs Sting suffers from the same syndrome.

At its most basic, Trudie has never been forgiven for snatching Sting from Frances Tomelty, even though Sting was the one who was married and therefore the one who was doing the actual cheating. Trudie first spotted him back in the days when he had green hair and was still called Gordon. It was 1977 and he was walking down the street they both lived in in Bayswater. But her cute punky neighbour was already married to Frances and had a child. He was also struggling to put a band together; worldwide success with The Police was still a couple of years away.

By 1980 Trudie, who’d been to acting school, had been cast as the First Witch in Peter O’Toole’s fabulously hammy production of Macbeth. Frances had nabbed the role of Lady Macbeth. It wasn’t long before Trudie and O’Toole started going out and she and Frances became friends. You can’t help but wonder why they became mates but all the time they spent hanging out together inevitably meant Trudie also met Sting, and the rest is history. Her 1983 pregnancy strengthened her claim. She quit acting for a while and joined Sting on the road. The band were starting to fall apart by this point. It was a gruelling world tour but the heavily pregnant Trudie was determined to stand by her man.

Do we condemn her for manipulation and man-handling or do we praise her as a woman who knew what she wanted and went all out to get it, who knew she couldn’t let him out of her sight for a minute, who knew her career ambitions would have to be put on hold if she were to achieve her love ambition? Was it purely determination or was it an unreasonable passion and a belief in the forces of destiny?

Sting, at that time, was probably the biggest rock star in the world, adored by boys and lusted after by girls. It was certainly not easy to be the woman in the life of pop’s top pin-up. When The Police did eventually disintegrate, it would have been easy for him to disappear down the dumper too, but he went on to become a mega-star in his own right. He couldn’t have done that without the support of someone who believed in him unequivocally. Plenty of women steal other women’s husbands. We are the more competitive sex, whether it’s getting into the smallest dress or capturing the best boy. And competitiveness, of course, is a trait that is generally only admired in a man, so when we do it so flagrantly, disapproval seems to be the natural consequence.

The steely determination we see in Mrs Sting no doubt arose from an impossible childhood where, after being hit by a truck as a toddler, she was left permanently disfigured. She had to endure 16 years of vile playground taunts before she was able to have plastic surgery. (Even then they didn’t stop: "What’s Sting doing with Scarface?" bitched the tabloids when their affair became public.) She’s not pretty; her face has always looked as if it’s been wrapped in clingfilm. And there’s that awful value judgment that Sting is a tantric-sex rock star. Surely he needs, demands, deserves, a beautiful wife. What he got was the embodiment of devotion and determination. But surely that has its own kind of beauty, even though it’s easier to make fun of her. Being constantly judged by her appearance made her look inside, take up yoga and build up her inner strength. A lot of women who don’t think they’re pretty have a need for power, a need to overindulge themselves, because if they don’t think they’re worth it, no one else will.

We all love to point out hypocrisies and contradictions - the socialist politician who pays for private surgery, the vegetarian who has a fetish for Prada leather shoes - if only to make us feel more comfortable about our own failings. But contradictions shouldn’t be condemned. They are what make us interesting. And while from the outside it might seem odd that the private-jetted 50-room-mansioned Stings think they can save the world with a couple of concerts and some good and some indifferent movies, they shouldn’t be condemned for trying. We can’t help but be fascinated by high-profile partnerships that last into middle age, especially between two people who apparently still desire each other. Just because it’s unusual doesn’t mean we automatically need to hate it.

But that doesn’t mean to say I’d ever buy a Sting record.