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 mother and father.
“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 cause. Not personally, not as a result of they met me, however due to who my mother and father are. My mother and father 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 standard child in regular environments.”
Jones went on to clarify that she started failing faculty and hated the best way she regarded and “developed bulimia once 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 mother and father 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 prognosis.
“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 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 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 sophisticated thoughts, my sophisticated household, my sophisticated faculty. When the social gathering ended for everyone else, I saved going and I drank and obtained excessive alone.”
She stated her psychological well being started to say no as she continued to extend her use of gear and that she was “somebody who lashed out.”
Jones alleged she was taken from her household’s residence after her father’s most cancers prognosis 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’ve to do that.”
“Then two males got here by way of the door, they usually have been each properly over six ft tall. They informed me I might do that the straightforward means or the exhausting means,” she remembered.
Jones stated she “selected the exhausting means” and resisted till the lads 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 thing I knew, and I used to be screaming bloody homicide,” she added.
She stated the lads “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 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 stated your entire expertise of the wilderness remedy program felt “dehumanizing.”
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“The entire level was to take each primary 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 stated she struggles with making an attempt to justify her expertise as a result of she “wasn’t bodily abused, not less than not after the entire gooning, escorting state of affairs.”
“The psychological and emotional manipulation I skilled is one thing I cannot overlook, and I received’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 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 needed to be there with him,” she stated. “Just a few months into this system, my dad handed away. I used to be not there. I had the luxurious of chatting with him two days earlier than on his birthday. I informed him I cherished him and he stated it again and we each knew.”
She stated she noticed a submit on-line asserting that her father had “handed away surrounded by his complete household.”
“It made me bodily in poor health 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 have been to be totally different,” Jones shared.
Processing Bowie’s dying turned a “complete 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 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 the way to grieve.”
Jones was capable of depart 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 residing below fixed construction inside a spot that was nothing like actual life after which immediately I used to be again residence, again on the earth, and it felt like sensory overload,” she stated.
Jones revealed that it wasn’t lengthy earlier than she obtained “legally kidnapped once more” and despatched away.
“I’m not right here to offer 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 time and again. Instructed you’re an excessive amount of, too damaged, too troublesome to deal with. The purpose is to speak about what nobody talks about … The purpose is that this occurred to me and to loads of different children that deserve higher.”
Different celebrities have been outspoken about youth remedy services, 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 services.
In 2024, Hilton testified in a legislative listening to in assist of a invoice that goals to pry open info on how short-term residential services for youth coping with substance abuse and behavioural points use disciplinary strategies reminiscent of restraints or seclusion towards minors. She detailed her harrowing abuse as an adolescent at a facility in Utah that she stated nonetheless haunts her and urged lawmakers to take motion earlier than extra youngsters should endure related remedy.
Later in her video, Jones stated she struggled to know what a “actual relationship was purported to really feel like” however she didn’t know if folks simply needed to get near her or hear tales about her mother and father.
“I couldn’t inform if somebody favored 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 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 flawed 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 identified,” Jones continued. “I turned scared of individuals and trusted them on the similar time. I needed connection desperately however I didn’t belief it once I had it.”
In January 2016, Bowie, whose hits included Area 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 youngsters — Duncan Jones and Alexandria “Lexi” Zahra Jones — one with every spouse.
— With recordsdata from The Related Press
