Sitting behind the wheel of his battered old truck, singer Neil Young beams with happiness, his long hair peeping out from under his black baseball cap.
Little wonder, perhaps, that his smile is so broad. For riding alongside him is his beautiful blonde wife, actress Daryl Hannah, some 15 years his junior.
This was a rare personal Instagram post the 64-year-old shared last year to mark her husband’s birthday. ‘I adore this human’ she wrote, followed by a two music emojis and a black heart.
While on paper, the couple may seem a rather unlikely pairing – she, one of Hollywood’s most famous bombshells, he a determinedly awkward old rocker – their life appears the picture of blissful happiness.
And both are clear about what makes them so content: their rejection of a glitzy showbiz life and many of its trappings.
Indeed, they now have an almost reclusive existence together on their farm in rural Canada, after Daryl – who became a global superstar and 80s pin-up after landing the role as Madison the mermaid in blockbuster movie Splash – turned her back on her acting career.
The couple loathe the vacuity of the showbiz lifestyle many of their contemporaries embrace – which perhaps might explain why Neil, 79, has broken all Glastonbury protocol by initially banning the BBC from screening his Saturday night headline set from the festival’s Pyramid stage.
Neil Young and his actress wife Daryl Hannah, who starred in Blade Runner and Kill Bill, and is 15 years his junior
Daryl previously said of her husband: ‘He just has an absolute, uncanny commitment to his creative muse. He’s not driven by financial interests, he’s not driven by self-aggrandisement’
The rumour mill went into overdrive after Neil was absent from the BBC’s coverage schedule, which was published on Tuesday.
On Thursday night a spokesman for the broadcaster said: ‘On Saturday on BBC iPlayer, our Glastonbury Channel and five streams for the main stages will bring a range of live performances to audiences.
‘At the artist’s request, we won’t be live streaming Neil Young’s set. Our plans, including those for our TV highlights shows and on-demand coverage, continue to be finalised right up to and during the festival.’
This means viewers would not have been able to see his live performance.
Today, however, the BBC confirmed that his highly anticipated set will be shown – in a U-turn that will delight fans who can now watch at home. A BBC spokesman said: ‘We are delighted to confirm that Neil Young’s headline set from Glastonbury on Saturday will be broadcast live to audiences across the UK on the BBC.’
Neil had previously said he had initially turned down the offer to perform at the festival, saying it was ‘under corporate control’ of the BBC in a message on his website.
But he later backtracked and was announced as one of the headliners, saying he had ‘always loved’ the event and was looking forward to performing.
I’m told that Neil’s awkwardness has gone down ‘very, very badly’ in some parts of Glastonbury, as well as at the BBC.
‘Most artists are thrilled to perform at Glastonbury and they are even more delighted that those at home can watch them on the BBC,’ one insider told me.
‘Neil might have an issue with the BBC, but the only people who would have lost out here are the licence fee payers, many who are too old to go to the festival so would have loved to have sung along at home.
His difficult behaviour surrounding the BBC hasn’t come out of the blue – Neil has long embraced the counter-culture, and hates all things mainstream.
And this was only compounded when he began dating Daryl in 2014. The actress, who also starred in Kill Bill and Blade Runner, had been hounded by the predatory film mogul Harvey Weinstein. While she had already been scarred by Hollywood, saying she was ‘very uncomfortable with the other aspects of the job – the publicity and all that stuff’, her experience with Weinstein appears to have been the final nail in the coffin for her acting career.
Daryl was one of many women who later came forward during the MeToo movement to recount harrowing stories of the producer’s sexual harassment. In 2017, she told the New Yorker Magazine that during one Cannes Film Festival, Weinstein pounded on her hotel room door so aggressively she was forced to escape through a back entrance and spent the night with her makeup artist.
The rocker is set to headline the Pyramid Stage tonight, and the BBC will now broadcast their coverage of the performance
The following night, Weinstein again returned, and she barricaded herself in the room.
‘I experienced instant repercussions,’ she said. By ‘instant’, she meant that her plane tickets home the next day were cancelled, as was her trip to the Cannes premiere of the film.
She later told an interviewer how that period affected her, saying: ‘I obviously have a lot of bad flashbacks from things I experienced in my career.
‘I love making movies and I love the work, but the other parts of it can be really a nightmare. A lot of the personalities you have to deal with, and certainly the sort of old-school, misogynistic structure of the industry, especially when you’re a young girl, you’re drowned in it.’
Neil, though, was Daryl’s saviour – and their instant connection was only deepened by their shared love of activism. Their first official appearance as a couple in 2014 came in Washington at a march against an oil pipeline.
That same year, Neil divorced his second wife, Pegi, and he and Daryl were spotted together having dinner in California.
Neil and Pegi had been married for 36 years before their divorce and have two children, so, early on, his romance with Daryl received scrutiny. He said in 2018: ‘We didn’t pay any attention to that. It doesn’t matter.
‘What matters is us, not the press. [Daryl is] a wonderful human being, and I’m very lucky to know her.’
They quietly married in July 2018 on Neil’s boat off the coast of Washington state. They moved to Neil’s childhood hometown in Canada, a quiet rural place. There, they have embraced a slower pace of life and have become increasingly devoted to environmental issues: Daryl, in particular, is vocal about using less plastics and saving water.
‘Neil’s biggest passion in life is the environment. Daryl is the exact same,’ says one source. ‘They bonded over their activism. They pretty much share the same views on everything.’
Neil, 79, had broken all Glastonbury protocol by initially banning the BBC from screening his set
Neil and Daryl visit Rome together in 2015, the year after they first started dating
With that in mind, insiders say it would be a ‘miracle’ if Daryl joined Neil at Worthy Farm this weekend.
One music industry source said: ‘Neil is on the verge of treating his performance with disdain so it doesn’t feel at all likely that Daryl would join him.
‘She hates the showbiz world and while Glastonbury tries not to be that, it is – and it is becoming increasingly more mainstream and posh.’
Once asked by an interviewer what she thought her life would be like today if she’d kept playing the Hollywood ‘game’, she quickly retorted: ‘I don’t even think that’s a possibility. In a certain way, I’m very similar to Neil. I am who I am. I’m not going to be able to fake it.’
Her affection for her husband is, though, absolutely real and deep, as evidenced in the 2023 documentary Coastal, which she filmed about his tour using just an old iPhone. Showing him with his son who has cerebral palsy, and playing music to his dogs, Neil comes across rather less angry rocker, more gentle old soul.
Daryl later said: ‘People think of him as this intimidating, inscrutable person who’ll make an album the record company refuses to put out [referring to the time Geffen Records sued Neil for making two albums it considered “musically uncharacteristic”].’
But, said Daryl, to consider him a stubborn old curmudgeon would be unjust: ‘He just has an absolute, uncanny commitment to his creative muse. He’s not driven by financial interests, he’s not driven by self-aggrandisement, he’s not driven by anything other than that creative force, and it’s pretty incredible to witness.
‘Having spent so much time with him, my perception is that he’s completely guileless. He has a lot of warmth and innocence, so I wanted to show that.’
The BBC are perhaps less likely to describe Neil’s ‘warmth and innocence’ after he stood his ground so firmly against them before his U-turn.
But his stand against the Corporation, at least initially, is in keeping with his strongly held convictions – staunchly supported, of course, all the way by his adoring wife.
