David Bowie & Iman: How Feelings For A Black Model Turned A Trisexual Into An Exemplary Family Man

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

British performer David Bowie has earned the fame of an innovator not only in music, but also in life. He loved to shock the audience and actually stood at the head of the permissive movement, having invented for himself the definition of "trisexual" from the English "try", in translation - "try." His first marriage, which lasted 10 years, fell apart. And 10 years after the divorce, he met Iman, a dark-skinned model who turned all his ideas about life and family.

Enjoy life

For more than half a century, David Bowie has been studying music, changing during this time many of his own images and directions, while maintaining his unique style, which could be recognized in both art rock and avant-garde jazz. It seems that the performer was exactly the same in life: he was always in search of new impressions, pleasures and feelings.

He made completely different impressions of himself. He was considered both overly cold-blooded and overly emotional, hot-tempered and passionate. One thing remained unchanged: David Bowie's sense of humor, often bordering on skepticism. Sometimes one got the impression that he openly scoffs at people, their values, morals and attitudes.

He later recalled that in his youth he was simply impossible, and certainly, David could never serve as an example to follow. To overcome his shyness, David Bowie began using drugs that gave him a sense of omnipotence. He fell in love, parted and again surrendered to the will of the senses.

In 1970, he married, offering his wife Angela Barnett a model of family life in which both felt no restrictions. However, complete freedom is hardly a good basis for starting a family. They did not interfere with each other's experiments, but at the same time both suffered from jealousy, made scandals, quarreled and harassed each other.

Even Zoe's son, born in 1971, could not save their marriage, which lasted 10 years. After breaking up, Angela noted with regret: she never understood what David Bowie expected from her. However, he himself would hardly have been able to answer this question.

Another 10 years had to pass before the very moment when he realized what he expected from the woman he loved.

Do not play by someone else's rules

She could never become a model if, like an obedient daughter, she went about the desires of her parents, who dreamed of seeing their daughter as a political scientist. Iman entered the University of Nairobi and even started studying political science when she met with the world famous photographer Peter Brad. It was he who convinced the student to try herself in the modeling business. However, Iman did not even think to resist. By that time, she realized that playing by someone else's rules was not at all for her. In the fashion world, incredible success awaited her.

And the supermodel's personal life did not take shape immediately. Barely reaching 18 years old, Iman married her Somali friend, but the girl's move to the United States put an end to the model's first marriage. At 22, Iman became the wife of Spencer Haywood, a famous basketball player. They lived together for 10 years, became Zuleikha's parents, but they could not find common ground that would unite them. When the passion passed, it turned out that the spouses were too different.

In spite of everything, Iman firmly knew: she would definitely meet her true love, she just had to wait. Three years after the divorce, she found out what the man of her dreams looks like and does.

A quarter century and a lifetime

They met at a charity dinner. David Bowie, who before that had many serious and not very connections, when he saw a dark-skinned beauty, he felt something that he had never experienced in his life. Could it be imagined that the favorite of the public and women, already in the first minutes of their acquaintance, began to invent names for the children who would appear in his marriage with Iman?

However, the supermodel did not share his hopes. She could not even imagine a famous performer in the role of husband and father of her children. However, she accepted the invitation to tea and watched with amazement how the recognized heartthrob was worried, without even touching his cup. It was later that she found out that David only drinks coffee.

When, during a walk, Iman's lace on the sneaker untied, she did not even have time to tilt her head, and David was already kneeling in front of her and carefully tied a bow on her shoes. And in general, in life, David Jones turned out to be completely unlike any of his stage images and that sarcastic and hot-tempered rocker that he appeared in his interviews.

On the contrary, for Iman David Bowie became a model of a true gentleman, reserved, caring, with a sparkling sense of humor and a desire to make her happy. Of course, they sometimes fought, but the supermodel admitted that her own excessive emotionality was the reason for them. However, all the outbursts of his beloved David immediately extinguished with good jokes.

Two years later, they became husband and wife. There was a beautiful proposal made by the performer on his knees with an incredible ring clutched in his hand. Surprisingly, she saw this ring in Florence. Two years later, he returned to this city, found that very jewelry store, and upon learning that the ring had been sold long ago, he found the owner and persuaded him to give up the ring. Iman could not believe her eyes when he put on her finger the very jewelry, the beauty of which she was delighted with.

In August 2000, daughter Lexi (Alexandria) was born, making Iman and David even happier than before. It was simply incredible: a person whose personal life was previously far from ideal and became the subject of discussion and condemnation, suddenly turned into an ideal husband, father and an exemplary family man.

David Bowie and Iman were happy. She never had a reason to regret that she connected her life with a rock artist, but at the same time Iman always said: she married David Jones, not David Bowie. Her husband was not a famous performer, but an ordinary person.

They lived the most ordinary life: they took their daughter to school, cooked lunches and dinners at home, tidied up their house and tried to spend all the holidays in the silence and solitude of their own family nest. Only occasionally did they manage to go on a journey unrecognized and these were incredibly memorable days when the spouses enjoyed life without camera flashes and the obsessive attention of fans.

Despite the fact that after the wedding of David and Iman, many predicted the imminent collapse of this marriage, the couple lived together for almost a quarter of a century, and only death could separate them. In 2016, David Bowie passed away from liver cancer. After his departure, Iman stated that she would never marry again.

David Bowie was called a pioneer, genius and "man from the star". He was born in London in January 1947 and his name was David Robert Jones. He changed names, images and styles, but never copied someone else's. And even after his death, he remained true to himself: in 2016, a strand of his hair was auctioned for 19 thousand dollars.