Rock legend David Bowie was consumed by his sex addiction which drove him to sleep with 13-year-old girls, engage in wild orgies, and declare his bisexuality with a ‘permanent erection,’ a new book reveals.
The British rock star’s reputation of rampant sexual consumption inspired an offering of a warm dead body to sleep with when he was on tour in Philadelphia – an offer he later declined.
He was fixated on Hitler and watched Nazi movies while high on cocaine – a vice that nearly killed him.
Bowie snorted so much coke for years he had to have cartilage removed from his body and put in his nose. He never had a cigarette out of his hand and he weighed 95lbs.
‘David Bowie was his very own creation, his very own work of art. This was the boy from postwar Brixton [a district of south London] with his sights set on the world,’ writes author and British GQ editor Dylan Jones in his exhaustive and fascinating new biography, David Bowie: A Life, to be published by Penguin on September 7.
‘His entire professional career was one of myth, legend and invention.’
Starman: Glam rock legend David Bowie was consumed by his sex and drug addiction that fueled his career
Fame: A new biography reveals the rock star would engage in orgies, have multiple affairs at once, and even invite others to watch him have sex
Ziggy Stardust: Bowie influenced the 70s glam rock scene after he created his famous alter ego in which he portrayed a bisexual alien with dyed flame-red hair
Bowie broke out of the monochrome world of his upbringing in southeast England in the 70s dressed like a pansexual spaceman in a Day-Glo jumpsuit, sashaying across the screen like a 1920s film star, with dyed flame-red hair.
Behind the curve in the 60s, the 70s clicked for the singer musically and ‘he exploited what he had in a way that was all-consuming,’ writes the author.
The son of a cinema usherette and a promotions officer for Bernardo’s, a children’s charity, Bowie, born David Jones, stated it was a happy childhood but also a lonely one.
‘I saw people deprived around me and kids going to school with their shoes falling apart and kids looking like urchins. It left an impression on me that I never ever wanted to be hungry, or at the wrong end of society’, he once told the author.
The impression was strong enough to inspire him to be a star rather than a great musician or artist.
But there was a dark cloud over his mother’s side of the family that was riddled with mental instability.
Two or three of his aunts committed suicide; three of his mother’s sisters were described as nuts, and one even had a lobotomy because of ‘bad nerves’.
Growing up: The son of a cinema usherette and a promotions officer for Bernardo’s, a children’s charity, Bowie, born David Jones, stated it was a happy childhood but also a lonely one
Bowie was inspired to be a star rather than a great musician or artist (pictured in his pre-glam phase in 1971)
At the height of his career, Bowie had developed a cocaine addiction so extreme, he had to have cartilage removed from one part of his body and put in his nose (Seen at the Cafe Royal in London with Mick Jagger and Lou Reed)
His mother had had two previous children, one a girl, the other, Terry, a half-brother to Bowie and eleven years older.
Bowie’s father didn’t want Terry in the house and made Bowie the chosen one. Their mother, Margaret was good with babies, but then abandoned them after that.
David was nurtured; Terry was not. He had introduced Bowie to American culture, jazz, the Beats, dive bars and flesh-pots of London’s West End.
Terry was later institutionalized for schizophrenia and David obsessed that he might have that gene and go off the rails just like Terry – or simply go mad from his mother’s side of the family.
But he went through life looking for his brother and missed him.
Throughout the mid-1960s, Bowie struggled to find the right music group, the right image, reinventing himself every 18 months to get attention.
He changed his name to David Bowie when British mag New Musical Express started calling Mick Jagger ‘Jagger Dagger.’
Consumed with his image, he’d go down to Carnaby Street, the fashion center of London and pick up garbage bags of clothing behind the shops since he could’t afford high-priced duds.
Seventies British singer Dana Gillespie recalled being his girlfriend when she was only 13 or 14. She later learned that he had been having affairs with both men and women at the same time
‘The ultimate rock & roll lover’: For Bowie, nothing was really off limits. He called women into the room to watch him have sex with another woman – and he was described to be more ‘seductive’ than ‘sexy’ (Pictured with actress Romy Haag in 1976)
Ladies’ man: Bowie was said to use sex to get what he wanted, and age didn’t matter (The rock star pictured on the set of The Hunger)
Bowie learned how to work publicity and play up what he wore.
He discovered eye makeup when the Mods wore it, and he jump-started his sexual addiction with a vengeance.
Author Jones describes 70s British singer Dana Gillespie describing being his girlfriend when she was only 13 or 14. He arrived at her house dressed like Robin Hood from a gig and her father initially thought he was a girl because of his long hair.
Everyone thought he was gay and ‘a bit theatrical for everyday guys,’ she said. At 18, he was wearing a blue dressing gown and full makeup.
To escape south east London, he became a lodger with journalist Mary Finnigan before becoming her lover.
She later learned that he had been bisexually multi-timing her the entire time as well as sleeping with his stagecraft guru and Angie in London who became his first wife.
Mime artist Lindsay Kemp remembered he was sleeping with many women at the same time they were having an affair. Once she woke up and heard noises in the next room. He was in bed with her best friend and the walls were shaking.
In the age of psychedelic drugs, while others were dropping acid, Bowie was afraid to indulge in it because to of his brother’s schizophrenia.
Bowie eventually married his first wife Angela Barnett, who was described as the ‘original Courtney Love’ – the model, actress and journalist, was the one who pushed him into stardom
The couple had a son Zowie Bowie (center) , who now goes by Duncan Jones
That didn’t stop him from developing a raging cocaine habit and nearly drinking himself to death later in Los Angeles.
Back in London, trying to find his way into the music business and a hit record, he was dubbed Rainbow Man because of the body suit and diaphanous scarves he wore.
He was off and running with a record deal and slowly morphing into his Ziggy Stardust period, a record he made in 1972.
And sex was always a part of the equation.
‘David was magnetic. He had charisma and was more seductive than sexy. At the time the English were very different sexually from Americans, because even though we were f***ing everything in sight, we were still very repressed’, Tony Zanetta, head of the company that handled Bowie’s business affairs told Jones.
Former groupie Lori Mattix remembered losing her virginity to him at 15 after getting stoned on Champagne and hash and he emerged from the bedroom room ‘in this f**king beautiful red and orange and yellow kimono’
‘A lot of people might have ended up in bed with him because he was so seductive’.
Nothing was really off limits. He called women into the room to watch him have sex with another woman.
Bowie’s rampant romps even landed him an opportunity to sleep with a corpse.
On tour in September 1972, Bowie invited Josette Caruso, a famous groupie at the time, to join him in Philadelphia at his hotel where he ‘properly seduced me — lots of kissing, lots of hugging, lots of f***ing,’ she said.
‘I mean he was the ultimate rock & roll lover.’
But then something weird and chilling happened later that night that she witnessed. Bowie’s bodyguard answered a knock on the door and called for David who went to the door and returned a few minutes later, ‘white as a sheet’.
‘He was visibly shocked. Someone had just turned up and offered him a warm, dead body for David to have sex with.’
That was the perception of David Bowie and Ziggy, the alter ego he created and wrote about in song lyrics.
‘He obviously looked like such a freak that some sick people thought he might be into necrophilia.’
‘Who on Earth do they think I am? Why would they think I’d be interested in something like that?’ a disturbed Bowie told her.
‘Why would I be interested in f***ing a dead body?’
Bowie eventually connected with Angie Barnett, a model, actress, and journalist, and they soon married. She was the one who pushed him into stardom and encouraged him to announce he was gay.
Angie was the original Courtney Love. The two had a wild sex life with ongoing orgies.
He also hung out with John Lennon and traveled to Hong Kong where Lennon drank the blood of a snake for a massive high, and then shoved a thousand-day-old egg cooked in horse urine in David’s mouth
Bowie was known to collaborate with fellow rockstar legend, Mick Jagger, in fact he changed his last name to Bowie – like the Bowie Knife – after British media nicknamed Mick Jagger, ‘Jagger Dagger’
‘He used his bisexuality’. He used his appeal to get what he wanted…It was all about David in bed, and with men I don’t think he ever had sex unless it was a means to an end. It was a bisexuality of ambition’, writer Wendy Leigh told the author.
One early acquaintance said, ‘He would either be a gigantic star or make a lot of money in the Piccadilly men’s loo’.
David Bowie: A Life will be released September 12, 2017
In their London house, the focal point of the sitting room, ‘the Pit’, was a fur-covered bed where everyone had sex.
Genetically blessed, Bowie used sex to get what he wanted – age didn’t matter.
Former groupie Lori Mattix remembered losing her virginity to him at 15 after getting stoned on Champagne and hash and he emerged from the bedroom room ‘in this f**king beautiful red and orange and yellow kimono’.
L.A. nightclubs on the Sunset Strip in the early ’70s were filled with young groupies who ‘dropped pills and evolved into pubescent dream girls for the platform-shoed rockers who could get anything and anyone they desired’.
David had his pick of these 12-to-15-year-old groupies.
Consuming vast quantities of cocaine and endless sex, Bowie worried about being driven insane. Some nights, he consumed so much he was isolated from the band in his head.
Life changed for Bowie when he met supermodel Iman at a dinner party in 1990 after being introduced by a hairdresser friend. She had said that she had ‘found her soulmate’
The two married in 1992 and had one daughter. They remained together until his death
It was a wild period of life with coke, sex and alcohol. He willingly dropped his pants to show off his heart-shaped shaved pubic hair.
Bowie changed his look again, left Angie, was living in New York.
‘He had to have cartilage removed from one part of his body and put in his nose because the coke had eaten his nose cartilage away,’ Jayne Country said.
Hanging with Glenn Hughes in Los Angeles who was recording with the English rock group, Deep Purple, they became coke addicts together but Glen left the room when Bowie became self-righteous and swallowed up into the narcissism of Hitler.
‘He didn’t want to be him, but he was fascinated by the Nazi Movement,’ Glen told Bryan Jones.
‘You go into a trance on cocaine, and he would just watch reels and reels of film about the Nazis. He never did the arm-lifting thing, he was just fascinated’.
Bowie wrestled with his demons well into the ’80s. He was troubled and very fragile after losing so much weight from drugs.
From rock star to legend: Following his marriage to Iman, he stopped smoking, cocaine was in his rear view mirror and he lived the last seventeen years of his life in Manhattan
He hung out with John Lennon in the late 1970s in Hong Kong and went looking to eat monkey brains but the place was closed. Lennon drank the blood of a snake instead for a massive high and then shoved a thousand-day-old egg cooked in horse urine in David’s mouth.
Los Angeles in 1975, was the worst period of Bowie’s cocaine psychosis.
He did more coke than anyone and it ‘damn near killed him’.
Staying with Glenn Hughes who lived half a mile from where the Manson murders took place, David wanted to bury all the sharp knives. He feared the Manson family might come to get him – even though they were now all in jail.
He weighed 95 lbs and was snorting 7 grams of coke a day.
He stayed up for 84 hours and believed he was possessed by the devil.
Bleeding from the eye, he would have overdosed had someone not put him in a warm bath.
Sex had become his great escape – sleeping with women nonstop. He counted more than a thousand women he had taken to bed and was like a vampire looking for sex.
Cocaine, coffee and nicotine were now stealing his life, he drank one espresso after another.
Life changed when he met supermodel Iman at a dinner party in 1990 after being introduced by a hairdresser friend.
A Muslim from Africa, Iman Mohamed Abdulmajid was born in July 1955 in Mogadishu, Somalia, her father a diplomat and former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, her late mother, a gynecologist.
She was educated at a boarding school in Egypt and studied political science at university in Kenya.
She had married a Somali hotel executive at age 18 before being discovered by an American photographer, Peter Beard on the streets of Nairobi.
She had a house on the Caribbean island of Mustique where Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall had a house. Two years later the couple were married.
‘I found my soul mate’, she stated. ‘Definitely I didn’t want to get into a relationship with somebody like him. I fell in love with David Jones, I did not fall in love with David Bowie’.
He stopped smoking, cocaine was in his rear view mirror and he lived the last seventeen years of his life in Manhattan.
After having several strokes, he disappeared from the public, coming out to walk the streets of Chinatown at 5am and indulging in his massive art collection.
Only his family knew he was dying of cancer and had chemo for two years.
He had seen a psychic in 1985 who predicted that the star would die at age 69 or 70.
He took his last breath at age 69 in January 2016, two days after his 69th birthday.
One unfilled wish was to record with Mick Jagger in a space ship while David was recording from earth.