Penny Lancaster's husband Sir Rod Stewart tells her what clothes he prefers her to wear

In an interview with the Daily Mail to promote her upcoming memoir Someone Like Me, Penny reflected on moments when Rod encouraged her towards certain styles, even arranging designer outfits in advance of a holiday - and admitting Rod hates seeing her in trousers.

She said: "When you think about controlling, coercive behaviour and the signs to look for, you could think, hang on - telling me how to dress, what to wear.

"But (his preferences weren't) coming from that direction. He knew I was coming into a lifestyle where there were wealthy people, and I was going to require different outfits.

"And he thought: 'She's special, I'm going to treat her. I'm going to surprise her.'"

Penny explained during an early trip to Barbados, Rod instructed her not to unpack because he had stocked the villa with rails of designer clothes in her size.

She said: "He was clearly a man used to being in command of his world, including what I'd wear on holiday."

Penny added his preferences remain clear.

She said: "He'll pick something up in a shop and say, 'Darling, look at this.' And I'll say: 'That's skintight and not for my tummy.'

"'OK, what about this?' And I'll say, 'My boobs are too big for it, darling.' He doesn't see me as I see me. I've aged, but he doesn't see it. How lovely is that?"

Penny revealed Rod often voices his dislike of certain clothing.

The Mail said Rod "firmly prefers his wife in skirts", and on occasion reprimands her with the words: "Oi. Trousers!"

Penny also reveals in her new book how she suffered a series of sexual assaults from childhood into her teenage years.

The Mail reports her memoir "starts with her fearing the sound of footsteps" as when Penny was aged only five a man tried to abduct her in his car as she played in her garden.

Her father later caught him and "taught that guy a lesson he'd never forget", Penny's book adds.

And aged 12, she was assaulted in an underpass by a man who grabbed her from behind as she walked alone to school.

It added she also suffered a "terrifying" sexual assault aged 17, at the start of her modelling career, which she has kept secret until now.