Sir Rod Stewart left hotel staff a £10,000 (about R236,000) tip - and told then to bet it on Scotland winning Euro 2024. File picture: REUTERS/Enrique Garcia Medina
Sir Rod Stewart left hotel staff a £10,000 (about R236,000) tip - and told then to bet it on Scotland winning Euro 2024.
The 78-year-old singer and his wife Lady Penny Lancaster stayed at the five-star Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire with their two sons, Alistair, 18, and Aiden, 12, to see in the New Year, and he was happy to reward the "terrific" service they had received.
Stewart told the Daily Record newspaper: “I’ve been lucky enough to stay in some of the top hotels in the world and the service at Gleneagles is second to none.
“The staff do a terrific job at a very hectic time of the year and deserve every penny. It’s Scottish hospitality at its very best.
"I advised the boys and girls at Gleneagles to invest the money wisely: stick the lot on Scotland to win the Euros.”
The 'Maggie May' singer grew up in London but his late father was from Edinburgh and the veteran entertainer has long been vocal in his support for Celtic and the Scottish national team.
On Saturday, he and his family toasted Celtic's 2-1 win over local rivals Rangers with cocktails from the hotel bar.
The hefty tip is the latest act of generosity from Stewart, who called a TV phone-in on Sky News last year and pledged to pay for diagnostic scans to help cut NHS waiting lists.
He personally visited the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, Essex, in February, to make good on the promise he'd made weeks earlier and met with patient Omarie Ryan who had travelled from London to have a scan on his knee.
The singer told him: "So this is my first customer. All good pal? You take care of yourself, stay healthy, alright mate."
And the 'Sailing' hitmaker hoped to take the scheme wider and for other public figures to follow his generosity.
He said: "If this is a big success, which I think it will be, I'd like to do it in Belfast, Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, and just keep it going, and hope some other people follow me."
Stewart also pledged to pay the rent and bills for seven homeless Ukrainian refugees for at least a year after finding them a £500,000 town house in Berkshire to stay in and organised three lorries to take 16 refugees to safety in Berlin.