David Bowie’s daughter says she missed dad’s demise when pressured into rehab centre – Nationwide
David Bowie’s daughter, Alexandria “Lexi” Zahra Jones, claims she was despatched away to a remedy centre when she was youthful after her father was identified with liver most cancers.
In a video posted to her Instagram, Jones, 25 — the daughter of the late singer and supermodel Iman — spoke about rising up with two well-known dad and mom.
“Ache is what landed me in remedy as an adolescent greater than as soon as,” she started within the 20-minute video posted to Instagram. “Individuals additionally know me for an additional motive. Not personally, not as a result of they met me, however due to who my dad and mom are. My dad and mom are David Bowie and Iman. I don’t lead with that in my on a regular basis life. My final title is Jones, and I grew up principally being handled like a traditional child in regular environments.”
Jones went on to clarify that she started failing college and hated the best way she regarded and “developed bulimia after I was 12.”
“I didn’t know why I felt the best way I felt. I simply knew I used to be depressing. I felt silly, incompetent, like unworthy, ineffective, unlovable. And having profitable dad and mom form of solely made it worse,” she mentioned.
Jones shared that when she was 14, she struggled with medicine and alcohol throughout the identical time of her late father’s most cancers analysis.
“When my dad was identified with most cancers, that was my breaking level. I used to be barely 14 and I might already see what the longer term would appear like for my household and for all of us. I felt damaged earlier than it even occurred,” Jones defined.
“It was my first 12 months of highschool and everybody round me was experimenting, however for me, it wasn’t about enjoyable,” she continued. “I wasn’t experimenting. I used to be escaping — escaping from my difficult thoughts, my difficult household, my difficult college. When the celebration ended for everyone else, I stored going and I drank and obtained excessive alone.”
She mentioned her psychological well being started to say no as she continued to extend her use of drugs and that she became “somebody who lashed out.”
Jones alleged she was taken from her household’s residence after her father’s most cancers analysis and despatched to a wilderness remedy program, the place she lived outdoor.
She mentioned her dad learn her a letter that ended with, “I’m sorry that now we have to do that.”
“Then two males got here by the door, and so they had been each properly over six toes tall. They advised me I might do that the straightforward means or the laborious means,” she remembered.
Jones mentioned she “selected the laborious means” and resisted till the boys allegedly grabbed her.
“I screamed. I held onto the desk leg. They grabbed me. They put their fingers on me. They pulled me away from every part I knew, and I used to be screaming bloody homicide,” she added.
She mentioned the boys “looped a rope round her” earlier than forcing her right into a black SUV and driving her away. Earlier than lengthy, she started to appreciate how far they had been taking her away from residence.
“I used to be born and raised within the metropolis,” Jones continued. “I had been tenting earlier than, however nothing like this. This was not tenting. It felt like boot camp’s bizarre cousin.”
She mentioned your entire expertise of the wilderness remedy program felt “dehumanizing.”
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“The entire level was to take each fundamental human consolation and want. No TV, no mattress, no roof, no privateness in order that we’d behave proper in hopes of incomes again small privileges,” Jones defined.
Jones mentioned she struggles with making an attempt to justify her expertise as a result of she “wasn’t bodily abused, at the least not after the entire gooning, escorting scenario.”
“The psychological and emotional manipulation I skilled is one thing I can’t neglect, and I gained’t faux it didn’t occur as a result of that’s abuse too,” she added.
When the wilderness remedy program was over, Jones thought she could be returning residence. As an alternative, she was despatched to a residential remedy centre in Utah for 13 months.
“All of this was taking place whereas my dad was solely getting extra sick again at residence and, for the primary time in a very long time, I truly wished to be there with him,” she mentioned. “Just a few months into this system, my dad handed away. I used to be not there. I had the posh of talking to him two days earlier than on his birthday. I advised him I cherished him and he mentioned it again and we each knew.”
She mentioned she noticed a submit on-line asserting that her father had “handed away surrounded by his entire household.”
“It made me bodily sick as a result of, yeah, the entire household was there apart from me. I’ve accepted it. I’ve tried to not internalize it or really feel responsible, however generally I nonetheless have these moments the place I want issues had been to be completely different,” Jones shared.
Processing Bowie’s demise turned a “entire new layer of this system” for Jones.
“They created a particular section for me known as the grief and loss section. They structured my grief,” she mentioned of the residential remedy centre. “They categorized it and assigned milestones and expectations. I assumed that was regular. I had by no means misplaced anybody near me and I didn’t know tips on how to grieve.”
Jones was capable of go away the remedy centre simply earlier than she turned 16 and went residence, the place she “slipped into previous patterns.”
“Perhaps it was the shock of going from one world to a different. I’d spent a 12 months dwelling below fixed construction inside a spot that was nothing like actual life after which instantly I used to be again residence, again on this planet, and it felt like sensory overload,” she mentioned.
Jones revealed that it wasn’t lengthy earlier than she obtained “legally kidnapped once more” and despatched away.
“I’m not right here to present a rundown of every place I went away to. That’s not the purpose. The purpose is to indicate what this technique does to an individual,” she continued. “What it takes to be despatched away over and over. Informed you’re an excessive amount of, too damaged, too tough to deal with. The purpose is to speak about what nobody talks about … The purpose is that this occurred to me and to lots of different children that deserve higher.”
Different celebrities have been outspoken about youth remedy amenities, together with Paris Hilton, who helped to struggle for laws aimed toward cracking down on the trade that cares for troubled teenagers by requiring extra transparency from youth remedy amenities.
In 2024, Hilton testified in a legislative listening to in help of a invoice that goals to pry open data on how short-term residential amenities for youth coping with substance abuse and behavioural points use disciplinary strategies comparable to restraints or seclusion towards minors. She detailed her harrowing abuse as an adolescent at a facility in Utah that she mentioned nonetheless haunts her and urged lawmakers to take motion earlier than extra kids must endure related remedy.
Later in her video, Jones mentioned she struggled to know what a “actual relationship was presupposed to really feel like” however she didn’t know if individuals simply wished to get near her or hear tales about her dad and mom.
“I couldn’t inform if somebody appreciated me for me or what being round me meant for them. That does one thing to your state of security,” she mentioned. “You begin questioning each single interplay, each kindness and each friendship, however on the similar time, I felt responsible for struggling in any respect as a result of how might I be sad? How might I really feel empty when my life was so full from the surface? ”
She went on to say that she “internalized that” and thought that her personal ache meant that “one thing was improper with me.”
“I didn’t need fame. I didn’t need consideration. I didn’t need to be a public particular person — and I nonetheless don’t. The highlight by no means felt like heat to me. It felt like publicity, like being seen with out being recognized,” Jones continued. “I turned scared of individuals and trusted them on the similar time. I wished connection desperately however I didn’t belief it after I had it.”
In January 2016, Bowie, whose hits included House Oddity, Fame, Heroes and Let’s Dance, died of most cancers on the age of 69.
Bowie was married twice, first to actor and mannequin Mary Angela “Angie” Barnett, from 1970 to 1980, after which to Iman in 1992. He had two kids — Duncan Jones and Alexandria “Lexi” Zahra Jones — one with every spouse.
— With information from The Related Press
