Rumours about the exotic private life of Sting and Trudie Styler have included swingers’ parties, strip clubs and tantric sex sessions lasting several hours.
Now some more tangible evidence of their colourful tastes has emerged.
The 56-year-old rock star and his wife have flung wide the doors of their £12million Manhattan apartment for an “at home” newspaper feature - with eyebrow-raising results.
The centrepiece of the 18-room apartment overlooking Central Park is an extraordinary scarlet bedroom embroidered in gold and dominated by two explicit Helmut Newton prints.
In one, an unidentified woman lays virtually naked, with her legs spread in the back of a vintage Mercedes as a man leans over from the front seat to unzip one of her spike-heeled boots.
The other image, above the bed head, shows the lower half of another female wearing just stockings, suspenders and high heels.
Miss Styler, 53, who once told a U.S. DJ that the couple enjoyed swingers’ parties, before apparently retracting the claim, said of the room: “I find it hot.”
She also curiously went on to admit that her son Giacomo once wanted to know if the photo of the almost nude, sprawled-out woman was his mother or sister. She told him it was neither.
Elsewhere in the apartment are rather more homely points of reference - cow paintings by daughter Mickey, family photos scattered in silver frames, a giant wall of Polaroids in the kitchen and Sting’s lute resting on a sofa.
The musician has six children, namely Joseph, 31, and Fuchsia Katherine, 25, from his first marriage to actress Frances Tomelty, and Mickey, 23, Jake, 22, Coco, 17, and Giacomo, who was 12 this week, from his marriage to Trudie.
He also has homes in Mayfair and Malibu, and estates in Wiltshire and Tuscany.
The couple put the Manhattan property, which they have owned for 20 years - on the market last year, but have now taken it off, despite buying a further £15million home in a separate development in the city.
