David Bowie‘s daughter Lexi Jones has praised her parents after sharing a story of being “forcibly removed” from her family home in the days before her father’s death.
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The 25-year-old artist, whose mother is Bowie’s widow Iman, shared a story earlier this month about when she was escorted to a treatment facility when she was 14-years-old.
In an Instagram video, she detailed the moment she was taken away, saying: “My mom called me out to the living room… my dad, my godmother and my mom were all standing there. It felt like an intervention.
“Then two men came through the door, and they were both well over six feet tall,” she added. “They told me I could do this the easy way or the hard way. I chose the hard way. I resisted. I screamed. I held onto the table leg.
“They 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 went on to share her experience at the retreat, telling her followers that she felt “stripped of any right to stay in my own life”.
“They got me back into a black SUV and shoved me inside,” she said. “By the time the door shut, my parents were already gone. I was alone. I was in a car with two strange men that wouldn’t tell me where we were going and I just sat there completely horrified and silent.”
She added that she was banned from using her phone, meaning she wasn’t aware when her father died.
Her story quickly made headlines, and now she’s taken to Instagram to clarify some details.
In a post shared today (February 27), she wrote that her story was “never meant to place blame on my parents”.
“I love my parents deeply and I don’t hold resentment toward them,” she added. “They were trying to help a child who was struggling in ways none of us fully understood at the time. I never shared this to create a narrative of family conflict.
“What I was trying to talk about was the experience of being a young person inside the teenage treatment system and how it feels while it is happening. Those feelings can exist at the same time as love for the people who were trying to help you. Both things can be true.”
She went on to say that she shared her story to help the “many people who have been through similar programs” who “carry confusion and silence around it”.
“Hearing from others who related has already shown me the message reached who it was meant to reach,” she added. “I’m not asking anyone to speculate about my family or assign fault to anyone in my life. My intention is conversation and understanding about a system, not judgment of individuals.
“I spoke about something that shaped me in hopes someone else might feel less alone in theirs.”
Lexi began her music career last year, quietly sharing her 12-track debut album ‘Xandri’ in April. It incorporates elements of pop, electronic and indie-rock, with Jones’ – born Alexandria Zahra Jones – vocals at the forefront.
Weeks after its release, she said she is “not a copy” of her late father in a poem called ‘David Bowie’s Daughter’. “That gets your attention ay?” she wrote.
In other news, a new immersive show, David Bowie: You’re Not Alone, is coming to London in April, showcasing some of the iconic musician’s most famous performances as well as rarely seen material.
