Sir Mick Jagger has been cut to the quick, so much so that he emerged from his self-imposed media purdah yesterday to defend himself against accusations by his former wife that he is stingy with his millions.

For years the 63-year-old Rolling Stone has remained tight-lipped even when the most lurid details of his private life have been made public. But a suggestion by Jerry Hall, the mother to four of his seven children, that he is a tightwad has driven him to abandon his vow of silence.

The Texan model and actress married Jagger in a legally dubious Hindu wedding ceremony in Bali in 1990, and left him nine years later when he fathered a love-child by a Brazilian model. Now she has taken a belated pop at the lead singer of the world’s greatest rock band, whose active love life still leaves him with enough energy to leap around the stage like a demented teenager.

Hall, now 50, said in an interview at the weekend: “He always wanted me to pay everything to do with the house and the children which I didn’t mind, I guess, because I had the money. But, yeah, he’s pretty tight with the day-to-day stuff.”

Jagger told The Times: “I find her remarks absurd. I have always paid all expenses for the children as well as the lion’s share of the costs relating to her lifestyle, and been more than happy to do so.”

The couple’s three daughters and one son are now aged between 9 and 23, and their defining feature is that none of them has a silly first name. Sir Mick has three other children by three other women.

Hall has, needless to say, an agenda, as all showbiz types do when making themselves available to the media.

She wishes the world to know, not so much about her exhusband’s alleged skinflint tendencies as the fact that she is in South-ampton this week reprising her West End role in The Vagina Monologues.

Sir Mick is the eighth-richest musician in Britain with a fortune of £215 million, a slim wad behind Sir Elton John but a pauper compared with Sir Paul McCartney, whose £725 million in the bank could soon suffer significant shrinkage if Heather Mills gets her way.

When a judge annulled the marriage of Mick and Jerry on the ground that it had never been legal, she walked away with £10 million, plus the couple’s mansion in Richmond, southwest London, valued at the time at £2 million.

Since then the couple appear to have remained on good terms. After the divorce Jagger moved into a suite in Claridge’s hotel until his bill reached £1.5 million.

Elsewhere in the interview Hall was kinder to her ex: “I like Mick; nobody is perfect. I can’t resist the odd poke at him, but we get on fine.”

On her husband’s infidelilty with the Brazilian, she said: “I don’t think marriages have to last for ever. I’m quite willing to accept that these things happen for a reason, in a spiritual way. I still like Mick and he’s a great dad. He travels a lot but, when he’s here, he tries as much as he can to see the children.”

A pretty good dad, she repeated, just not a very good husband.

Jagger indicated yesterday that he was still a pretty good father: before starting rehearsals for the Stones’ summer tour, he plans to take his sons to the FA Cup Final at Wembley on Saturday.

He remains a busy man on several fronts. This week he appeared at a New York fashion event with his squeeze of five years, L’Wren Scott, a 40-year-old, exceedingly leggy American. Miss Scott was wearing a dazzling ring on her engagement finger, which she showed off by draping her hand over Sir Mick’s shoulder.

Insiders say that the couple have no plans to marry, but the old tightwad wouldn’t splash out on a glitzy rock if he couldn’t get no satisfaction. Would he?

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