Additional Coverage:
- David Bowie’s daughter missed icon’s final days after being ‘forcibly removed’ from home (irishstar.com)
Lexi Jones Recounts “Forcible Removal” from Home Before Father David Bowie’s Death
Alexandria “Lexi” Jones, daughter of music icon David Bowie, has shared a poignant account of being “forcibly removed” from her home at age 14, a decision that led her to miss the final days before her father’s passing in 2016. The 25-year-old artist recently opened up on Instagram, detailing her experiences in multiple treatment centers across the U.S. while her father privately battled liver cancer.
Jones explained that her family made the difficult decision to place her in a facility to address her struggles with depression and an eating disorder. She admitted that her father’s 2014 liver cancer diagnosis became a “breaking point” for her, leading her to turn to alcohol and drugs as a coping mechanism. Bowie, the legendary artist, died at 69, just two days after the release of his acclaimed final album, Blackstar.
Recounting the traumatic intervention, Jones, whose mother is supermodel Iman, 70, described how two “well over six feet tall” men arrived at her home to escort her to a treatment facility. She also recalled a heartfelt letter from her father, which included the poignant line, “I’m sorry we have to do this.”
Following her father’s diagnosis and her subsequent struggles, Jones reflected, “Everyone around me was experimenting. But for me, it wasn’t about fun.
I wasn’t experimenting, I was escaping. When the party ended for everybody else, I kept going, and I drank and got high alone.
I became someone who lashed out. I was cruel to people who didn’t treat me the way I wanted to be treated.
I was begging to be respected by becoming something people feared, or at least noticed.”
She elaborated on the intervention, stating, “My dad read a letter he had written. I don’t really remember what it said, but I do remember the last line, and it said, ‘I’m sorry we have to do this.'”
Jones vividly described resisting the men who “grabbed me, they put their hands on me, they pulled me away from everything I knew, and I was screaming bloody murder. I was screaming for someone to help me, but no one did.”
She continued, “I felt stripped of any right to stay in my own life. They got me back into a black SUV and shoved me inside.
By the time the door shut, my parents were already gone. I was alone.
I was in a car with two strange men who wouldn’t tell me where we were going, and I just sat there completely horrified and silent.”
Jones spent 91 days in “wilderness therapy,” and it was during this time that her father passed away. She shared a bittersweet memory, stating, “I had the luxury of speaking to him two days before, on his birthday. I told him I loved him, and he said it back, and we both knew.”