Iman won't call David Bowie her "late" husband: "He is my husband"

15 December 2022, 11:39

Smooth's Untold Stories: How David Bowie proposed to Iman

Iman opens up about the grief of losing her husband David Bowie over six years after his death.

Iman is a groundbreaking supermodel and entrepreneur who also memorably played a shapeshifting alien in a Star Trek movie.

Many music fans will also know her as David Bowie's second wife and the inspiration behind much of his classic 1993 comeback album Black Tie White Noise.

• David Bowie's wife Iman says she'll never remarry after his death
• How David Bowie met Iman: Matchmaker recalls night "lonely" star met his soulmate
• Listen to the Smooth Love Songs Live Playlist on Global Player

The couple met in 1990 and married in 1992, staying together until Bowie's death in 2016 at the age of 69. They had one child together, a daughter Alexandria 'Lexi' Zahra Jones.

In recent interviews, Iman has reflected on the grief of losing her husband.

"It was too much. Too much," she told Vogue of the public focus on her after David's passing. "We lived a very private life and suddenly it felt like there was a target on mine and my daughter's head."

She added: "It got to the point where we had to leave our home because the public were always at the front door. Which I admire. I get it.

"But there was a point where it was like: 'OK, go home now.'

"You had people who would take your picture, sell it and then come to you and say, 'I feel your pain'. And, I'm like, 'No, b*tch, you don't feel my pain, get away from me'."

Iman Thinks of David Bowie 'Every Minute' of 'Every Day'

Iman added of how she felt as the seventh anniversary of David's death approaches: "He is not my 'late husband'. He is my husband.

"I don't mind at all being referred to as 'David Bowie's wife'. But I always remind people that I existed before I met him."

"And he was also very particular. He never introduced me by saying, 'Meet my wife'. He'd always say, 'Meet Iman, my wife'. So we both already had our own identity. We were separate but together."

Earlier this year, Iman told SiriusXM Today Show Radio that she thinks of David "every day and every minute".

"I have a necklace I'm wearing under here that has his name on it," she said of the piece designed by their freind Hedi Slimane.

"I've worn it since that first week after David passed away. Yeah, I think of him all the time.

"People said your 'late husband'. I said — don't call my husband 'late,' he's not my late husband he is my husband and he'll always be."