AceShowbiz - Rick Springfield is grateful that his wife didn't leave him because of his fame. The 73-year-old rock star began dating Barbara Porter just as he started his career as a member of Zoot and tied the knot with her in 1984 but explained that sudden stardom had been a "difficult" thing for them both to deal with and they would "break up" several times in the early days of his fame.

"I've been a musician since I was 15. I've certainly been through it all when success first hit me. It's a very heady thing, I'm walking down the street one day and no one is looking at me and then two weeks later everyone is going 'Is that him?' It's a difficult thing to deal with, and I succumbed to it, I have a weak side, I'm a human being and that was part of the battle with my wife," he told E! News.

"Well, she was my girlfriend then but we used to break up a lot because of all of that kind of thing. We started dating just as things happened so it was a very tumultuous time for us. She's the most amazing person in the world and I'm very lucky that she didn't ditch me."

Meanwhile, the Grammy Award-winning star - who is possibly best known for his 1981 chart-topper "Jessie's Girl" - went on to reveal that fans often throw their undergarments at him on stage but doesn't mind so much because he used to have beer cans thrown at him when performing in his native Australia and had to use his guitar to protect himself.

He said, "We used to have a huge collection of bras and underwear but I grew up in Australia playing the pubs so I've had beer cans, full beer cans, thrown at me. There were no bouncers or anything in the late 60s or 1970s. So you had a mic stand or a guitar to protect you!"