Jerry Hall's abusive childhood

Jerry Hall: Dad broke our bones

Jerry Hall has revealed that her alcoholic dad beat her and her four sisters so viciously he 'broke bones'.

The 51-year-old supermodel said her dad - a US Army Sargent called John Hall - would 'burst into rages' when he returned home.

Speaking on an Irish radio show, Jerry said: 'He would talk to us like soldiers. He was very imaginative in his insults and that is hard to get over.

'I'm not trying to be vindictive but he certainly gave us a hard time,' she continued.

'He was very violent. He had to drive explosive chemicals across the country and took uppers (chemical stimulants) and would come home and beat us five girls. He broke bones.

'He had a terrible upbringing and his father drank and his mother died when he was a baby - you try to understand why someone became so violent.'

Jerry, former wife of Mick Jagger, was brought up in the industrial town of Mesquite in Texas. As well as being in the army, her father was also a truck driver, and reportedly longed for sons, which is why he gave his daughters boys' names, including Jerry and Terry.

Jerry revealed that a mixture of things led to his violence, but she believes it was mainly driven by the awful things he saw.

'Horrible things happened to my father. He had to release people from a prison of war camp and found 18,000 dead bodies. It is a terrible thing to be living in fear and he would abuse us verbally too.'

Jerry recently landed a £1 million deal with publisher HarperCollins to write an autobiography to be released in autumn next year.

'Writing about it is very cathartic,' she told her interviewer. 'I think my mother was embarrassed about it. Why didn't she protect us or leave? She had five of us and she needed a home and food, and she loved him.'

Jerry left home at 16 and headed to Paris to break into the modeling world. She was soon working for the likes of Yves Saint Laurent and, after a relationship with Bryan Ferry, met Mick Jagger, whom she stayed with for the next two decades and with whom she has four children.

Her father died of cancer in 1977.