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. “Folks additionally know me for one more 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 identify is Jones, and I grew up principally being handled like a traditional child in regular environments.”
Jones went on to elucidate that she started failing faculty and hated the way in which she regarded and “developed bulimia after I was 12.”
“I didn’t know why I felt the way in which I felt. I simply knew I used to be depressing. I felt silly, incompetent, like unworthy, ineffective, unlovable. And having profitable dad and mom type of solely made it worse,” she stated.
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 may already see what the long run would seem like for my household and for all of us. I felt damaged earlier than it even occurred,” Jones defined.
“It was my first yr 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 sophisticated thoughts, my sophisticated household, my sophisticated faculty. When the get together ended for everyone else, I stored going and I drank and acquired excessive alone.”
She stated her psychological well being started to say no as she continued to extend her use of drugs and that she was “somebody who lashed out.”
Jones alleged she was taken from her household’s house after her father’s most cancers analysis and despatched to a wilderness remedy program, the place she lived open air.
She stated her dad learn her a letter that ended with, “I’m sorry that we now have to do that.”
“Then two males got here by way of the door, they usually have been each nicely over six toes tall. They instructed me I may do that the simple method or the laborious method,” she remembered.
Jones stated she “selected the laborious method” 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 the whole lot I knew, and I used to be screaming bloody homicide,” she added.
She stated 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 have been taking her away from house.
“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 stated the complete expertise of the wilderness remedy program felt “dehumanizing.”
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“The entire level was to take each fundamental human consolation and wish. 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 stated she struggles with attempting to justify her expertise as a result of she “wasn’t bodily abused, not less than not after the entire gooning, escorting scenario.”
“The psychological and emotional manipulation I skilled is one thing I cannot neglect, and I gained’t fake it didn’t occur as a result of that’s abuse too,” she added.
When the wilderness remedy program was over, Jones thought she can be returning house. As a substitute, she was despatched to a residential remedy centre in Utah for 13 months.
“All of this was occurring whereas my dad was solely getting extra sick again at house and, for the primary time in a very long time, I really needed to be there with him,” she stated. “A number of months into this system, my dad handed away. I used to be not there. I had the luxurious of talking to him two days earlier than on his birthday. I instructed him I liked him and he stated it again and we each knew.”
She stated she noticed a publish on-line saying 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 typically I nonetheless have these moments the place I want issues have 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 part for me referred to as the grief and loss part. They structured my grief,” she stated of the residential remedy centre. “They categorized it and assigned milestones and expectations. I believed that was regular. I had by no means misplaced anybody near me and I didn’t know find out how to grieve.”
Jones was in a position to go away the remedy centre simply earlier than she turned 16 and went house, the place she “slipped into outdated patterns.”
“Perhaps it was the shock of going from one world to a different. I’d spent a yr dwelling underneath fixed construction inside a spot that was nothing like actual life after which abruptly I used to be again house, again on the earth, and it felt like sensory overload,” she stated.
Jones revealed that it wasn’t lengthy earlier than she acquired “legally kidnapped once more” and despatched away.
“I’m not right here to provide a rundown of every place I went away to. That’s not the purpose. The purpose is to point out what this method does to an individual,” she continued. “What it takes to be despatched away over and over. Advised 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 quite a lot of different youngsters that deserve higher.”
Different celebrities have been outspoken about youth remedy amenities, together with Paris Hilton, who helped to combat for laws geared 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 info on how short-term residential amenities for youth coping with substance abuse and behavioural points use disciplinary strategies equivalent to restraints or seclusion in opposition to minors. She detailed her harrowing abuse as a young person at a facility in Utah that she stated nonetheless haunts her and urged lawmakers to take motion earlier than extra kids should endure comparable remedy.
Later in her video, Jones stated she struggled to grasp what a “actual relationship was speculated to really feel like” however she didn’t know if individuals simply needed 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 stated. “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 may I be sad? How may 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 incorrect with me.”
“I didn’t need fame. I didn’t need consideration. I didn’t wish 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 needed 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 recordsdata from The Related Press
