Michelle Rocca

Michelle Mary Teresa Rocca (born 1961) is an Irish TV presenter, former model and beauty pageant titleholder who won Miss Ireland 1980. The following year, she married footballer John Devine. Two years after their divorce in 1990 she met and later married, Northern Irish singer Van Morrison.

Career Rocca grew up in a large family with two brothers and three sisters. Rocca attended University College Dublin studying Greek and Roman Civilization, as well as Italian and French Archaeology. She is fluent in several languages and has earned an MA degree from Trinity College in Dublin and also a degree from Bristol University.

She was named Miss Ireland in 1980 and was the number 3 finalist in the Miss International 1981 pageant. She worked in the family business and also modeled until she joined RTÉ in 1987 as a television presenter. In 1988, she co-hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 1988 with Pat Kenny in front of a worldwide audience of 600 million viewers. She continued to model, with occasional presenting jobs, such as the Miss World 1990 contest in London.

Rocca later became a psychology and motivational teacher with a master's degree in philosophy and English.

Personal life Rocca is the daughter of Paddy and Maureen Rocca, and granddaughter of Italian immigrant Egidio Rocca.

Rocca began dating Arsenal and Irish International footballer John Devine when she was 17 and they were married in 1981 and lived in England. The couple had two daughters. They separated in 1987 and she returned to Dublin with the children.

Rocca met Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison in the summer of 1992. They married in the mid-1990s and divorced on 24 March 2018. They have two children, Aibhe and Fionn Ivan. She was the second woman to appear on one of Morrison's album covers—1995's Days Like This. The first was Morrison's first wife Janet "Planet" Rigsbee, who appeared on the cover of 1971's Tupelo Honey. Rocca also appeared on the cover of the October 1994 tribute album, No Prima Donna: The Songs of Van Morrison.

Rocca has five children.