Just days after announcing that he will be participating in the 2024 Outlaw Music Festival, John Mellencamp He spent part of his Friday with girlfriend Kristin Kehrberg.

The couple, who have been an item for about a year, have been indulging in retail therapy at Courrèges on Grand Street in Downtown Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood.

Seemingly on a mission to find that perfect piece, the multi-millionaire socialite, 57, was spotted with the acclaimed rocker, 72, a few pieces on the rack.

On this day, the Hurts So Good singer-songwriter stepped out in black pants with a matching jacket over a black button-down and a white t-shirt and sneakers.

His almost completely gray hair was styled in a pseudo-pompadour, pushed off his face, as he has done for years, and over his ears.

At one point, while his lady was still at the boutique, Mellencamp stepped outside to smoke a cigarette under the bright sun, on a day with temperatures in the low 40s Fahrenheit.

Eventually, the Jack & Dianne star went back inside to check on Kehrberg, who then showed him a few items on the sale rack.

The pair attempted to strike up a conversation about at least one of the clothing items, and moments later left the store with Kehrberg carrying a brown shopping bag.

The socialite is the widow of Shelter Island advertising guru Richard “Dick” Tarlow, who died in May 2022 at the age of 81, according to Page six.

She started dating Mellencamp in early 2023, but they wouldn’t be seen in public until later that summer in August.

The pair were photographed lying close together outside Mellencamp’s granddaughter Slate’s fashion show in Los Angeles.

The Pink Houses star previously dated actress Meg Ryan. The romance actually started in 2011 and lasted for three years until they broke up in 2014, according to We weekly.

But Mellencamp and Ryan would rekindle their relationship two years later, eventually announcing their engagement in 2018, only to call things off the following year.

Earlier this week, it was announced that Mellencamp would be participating in the Outlaw Music Festival headlined by Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan.

When the tour kicks off on June 21, former Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant will be part of the traveling show with Nelson, Dylan, Alison Krauss and Celisse.

The Seymmour, Indiana native won’t be at the show until July 29 and will stay until the end of the tour on September 17.

Brittney Spencer, Billy Strings and Southern Avenue will also play some shows, replacing Plant, Krauss and Celisse in late July.

“I’ll be hitting the road with @willienelsonofficial in 2024 along with an incredible lineup of artists on the 2024 Outlaw Music Festival Tour, including @bobdylan @billystrings @brittneyspencer @southernavenuemusic,” Mellencamp shared on his Instagram when announcing the tour -page.

‘Presale tickets go on sale today at 10am, use code OUTLAW24. For more details and tickets visit @blackbird_presents #outlawmusicfestival.’

The singer-songwriter started his illustrious career in music in the early 1970s under the stage name Johnny Cougar.

He played the name game and went by John Cougar on his self-titled third album.

His big break came with the release of his fifth studio album, American Fool (1982), which included the three hit singles Hurts So Good, Jack & Dianne and Hand to Hold On To.

His seventh album, Uh-Huh (1983), would become an even bigger hit with the support of singles such as Pink Houses, Authority Song and Crumblin’ Down.

In total, Mellencamp has released 25 albums and collected 22 hit songs in the US throughout his career, including Lonely Ol’ Night, I Need A Lover, Small Town, Rain On The Scarecrow, ROCK in the USA, Human Wheels, Paper In Fire. , Cherry Bomb, Jackei Brown and Love And Happiness, among others.

He was eventually inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, followed by induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2018.

By Sameer Suri for Dailymail.com

Published: 8:28 PM EST, December 19, 2023 | Updated: 8:45 PM EST, December 19, 2023

‘I don’t want to go to a museum. I don’t want to look at a market. I just want to lie down. I am broken.”

It’s a rare moment of surrender for Felix, 11.

But then again, anyone who lands at Nairobi’s Wilson Airport – named by Lonely Planet as the best city to visit in 2024 – after a week’s safari will understand the deep exhaustion that comes from seven days of sunrise and eight hours of collision every day. game drives and the Have-I-Lost-My-Mind excitement that comes from staring leopards and lions in the eyes as they devour their prey before your eyes and live to tell the tale.

The brain is overloaded. The heart is full. But boy, the body needs rest. And ideally a dip in water that is not teeming with hippos and crocodiles.

As our jeep weaves through the morning chaos, streets full of workers and street vendors, I begin to wonder if we will ever find an oasis of peace before boarding our flight home the next morning.

A taxi is coming towards us, the pink neon strip on the windshield shouting, ‘God is the answer!’

That may well be the case, but our needs are more pressing and center around the essentials of peace, tranquility and, preferably, a swimming pool.

House of Wainea boutique hotel twenty minutes’ drive from the airport, proves to be the perfect place for an emergency stop before boarding a flight back to England.

Located in the leafy suburbs of Masai Lane, the impressive entrance via a gated driveway gives a taste of what is to come.

Formal front gardens frame this gracious mansion and as soon as you step inside you are greeted by a colonial atmosphere.

A polished stone lobby gives way to gleaming teak floors, tasteful modern furnishings and a wide selection of African art.

Double doors lead to a courtyard where manicured gardens fan out on both sides. Palm trees shade the sun loungers along the pool, while covered tables and chairs are spread across the lawn.

Even the famous Karen Blixen Museum or the David Sheldrike Wildlife Trust – both attractions just steps from the hotel – can’t lure us out.

Felix begs to jump into the pool – his first of the week – but first we are taken to our rooms.

Rose, 17, and Evie, 16, are led back to the main house and taken upstairs to ‘Tembo’ – the Swahili for elephant – a spacious and bright double room overlooking the gardens.

Much to Felix’s delight, the rest of us are led back to the pool and given the keys to a charming cottage hidden behind a hedge.

With a private veranda, stylishly furnished sitting room, dining area, fully equipped kitchen and two bedrooms with sparkling clean bathrooms, it could be a family home for a week. We only have one night, so there’s no time to lose.

Finally wanting their own space, the girls announce that they will do their own thing. Rose takes a book into the garden while Evie, reunited with WiFi, takes a prime position on the hotel’s front balcony.

I can’t wait for a long hot bath and soon I’m strutting around in a fluffy white dressing gown and slippers, browsing the cottage’s selection of illustrated hardbacks about African life.

Felix runs to the pool and terrorizes his father into joining him in the refreshing cold water. Like a saint who must subject himself to increasingly colder temperatures, he does so – with the agreement that within an hour we will all meet in the shaded seating area for our first board game of the holiday – Ticket To Ride: The Heart of Africa, our latest version of this insanely competitive series.

As always, an hour flies by in a heated period of family rivalry and geographical domination.

Relaxation quickly gives way to blame as routes are thwarted and victories nullified. Strangely enough, we feel like ourselves again and are ready for dinner. Although we better stop shooting before the starters arrive.

The dining room at the front of the hotel is a pleasantly formal affair, with muted tones, starched white tablecloths and attentive waiters in smart waistcoats. The food, although slightly old fashioned, is well presented and the portions are large.

Red snapper and steak Diane are hits with meat eaters, while vegetarians are satisfied with their eggplant pasta and potato dish.

A strong bottle of South African Chardonnay prepares the ground for going to bed. The thoughtful addition of piping hot water bottles nestling under the covers upon our return to our rooms only helps us fall closer to sleep.

We wake up refreshed and as ready as we will ever be for a 6,000 mile flight.

House of Waine has made us whole again. And renewed these Big Five with enough energy to handle our journey home.

Over the decades, her high-end fashion boutique in Knightsbridge has included Princess Diana, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Ava Gardner among her clientele.

But Bridget Hutchcroft, owner of Pandora Dress Agency near Harrods, laments the day an apparently wealthy and charming ‘heiress’ waltzed through her door – eventually swindling her out of £1.3 million.

Ms Hutchcroft, 63, told the Mail how she had been betrayed by Ekaterina Barrett, 67, who befriended her and convinced her that she urgently needed a loan to help her through a costly divorce.

The case has echoes of Anna Sorokin, the inspiration behind Netflix drama Inventing Anna, who financed her lavish lifestyle by posing as a wealthy German heiress to swindle New York’s high society.

“Ekaterina never fully explained where her money came from, but after visiting her apartment in Monaco, I truly believed she had a huge trust fund that she told me about,” Ms Hutchcroft said.

“She really looks uncanny like Anna Sorokin, only Ekaterina hasn’t been caught yet.”

Last year a High Court judge ruled that Ms Barrett must hand over £1.6 million to Ms Hutchcroft to repay the loan and cover legal costs after she broke an agreement to repay the money.

But Ms Hutchcroft has now had to hire private investigators to track down the ‘heiress’ as no penny has yet been handed over.

‘She could be anywhere. Some people I know say they’ve seen her around Mayfair recently, but I think she lives permanently in Monaco,” she said.

Ms. Barrett was looking good when she started visiting the Pandora boutique in 2017. She mingled with London’s elite at exclusive restaurants, lived in a £4.2 million Mayfair flat and was driven around town in a Bentley.

She told Ms Hutchcroft that her grandfather had set up “a substantial trust for her in Liechtenstein” but she was temporarily unable to access the funds, according to documents filed with the Supreme Court.

A few months into their friendship, Mrs. Barrett sobbed that she was going through an expensive divorce and asked to borrow money.

Her bank manager assured Ms Hutchcroft that her wealth was “equal to a Rothschild,” the court heard. But Mrs. Hutchcroft began to have second thoughts after realizing how much she had borrowed her friend.

She said, “I just got to a point where I had to sit down and work out how much I had given her over the course of the year, and I was shocked at how much I had allowed this person to take.

“I called her and said, ‘You have to pay me Ekaterina.’ And she said, “Next time you ask, I won’t pay you for a hundred years.” I was just so upset. I trusted her, ridiculously enough.’

To her horror, Mrs Hutchcroft then learned that Mrs Barrett had previously been convicted of fraud in Austria.

She contacted Scotland Yard, but officers refused to investigate, saying it was a civil matter.

She then filed a claim in the Supreme Court, where Ms Barrett denied borrowing the money, claiming the payments were for the sale of designer clothes. The matter was settled before trial when Ms Barrett agreed to pay £1.4 million.

But when she failed to pay, Ms Hutchcroft returned to court and secured a judge’s ruling that she had to pay £1.6 million.

Ms. Barrett is an Azerbaijani national and was born Ekaterina Svetikova in Ukraine in 1956. She married British artist Mitchel Barrett in 2000 and they moved to Vienna, Austria.

But four years later, she was convicted of fraud after posing as an oil company agent to trick victims into lending her $200,000.

Her passport was confiscated and she was banned from entering Austria for nearly a decade.

Mr. Barrett, now her former husband, said: ‘I was warned by friends to leave her. The next thing I knew, the police came to our apartment and arrested her.’ When asked about her fraud conviction, Ms Barrett’s lawyers denied that she had been arrested. Faced with evidence, they admitted the conviction but claimed it was overturned.

Ms Hutchcroft believes Ms Barrett owns the apartment in Monaco, which is now up for sale for £19.2 million. However, Ms Barrett denies owning the property and said she is a UK tax resident.

A representative said Ms Barrett had not admitted any liability by reaching a settlement with Ms Hutchcroft, that legal proceedings were “ongoing” and that she would comply with court orders “to the extent she is able to do so”.