Mary Angela Barnett described their marriage as convenient. She said that they got married in order for her to be able to secure a work permit. She also acknowledged the fact she didn’t believe it would last. Apparently, Bowie told Barnett before they got married, “I’m not really in love with you.”
Bowie said that living with Barnett was “like living with a blow torch.” In 1971, they had a son together. The couple named him Duncan, but he was more commonly known as Zowie. In 1980, when Bowie and Barnett divorced, he gained custody of Duncan. Barnett went on to write a memoir called “Backstage Passes: Life on the Wild Side With David Bowie,” in which she described their tumultuous marriage.
Some Confusion
Many people were confused by Bowie when it came to his love life. He declared he was homosexual in an interview in 1972 during his debut as Ziggy Stardust. According to the author David Buckley, if Ziggy succeeded in confusing his audience, a big part of it centered on the topic of his sexual preferences.
Before Iman, David Bowie was married to Mary Angela Barnett. They had an open marriage, and she fully supported his claim of bisexuality and affirmed that Bowie even had a relationship with Mick Jagger.
His Big Mistake
To add to the confusion, Bowie told 'Rolling Stone' in 1983, that his public declaration of bisexuality turned out to be “the biggest mistake I ever made.” Bowie then appended that he was always a “closet heterosexual.”
Bowie stated that he had no issue with people thinking that he was bisexual. But he also didn’t want to hold any flags or be a representative for other groups. All he wanted was to be a songwriter and musician – he didn’t appreciate being pigeonholed into a category.
Immediate and All-Encompassing
Bowie and Iman met for the first time at a dinner party in 1990. Iman had just retired from modeling and was introduced to her future husband by her hairdresser. Bowie stated emphatically that it was indeed love at first sight. He said his attraction to her was “immediate and all-encompassing,” and that he couldn’t sleep due to the anticipation of their first date.
For Bowie, getting married was a done deal. Iman happened to have a strong impact on the otherwise smooth Bowie. According to Iman, the singer told her he was so nervous when, after the first date, he asked her to have “tea” with him. “He doesn’t drink tea; he never drinks tea. He had coffee,” Iman later recalled of their first date.
Actions That Speak Louder Than Words
Within a couple of weeks, Iman and Bowie were in a serious relationship. She said that his actions spoke louder than words. Iman described the time she arrived at the Los Angeles airport. The doors opened, she came out of the plane, and all these people were taking photos of him, he was just standing there, greeting her with flowers in hand, without any security.
She knew then that he was a keeper, and they got married two years after their first date. Their first public appearance was at an AIDS benefit in 1990. Iman was still hesitant, though, about getting married to a rockstar. In a 2004 interview with The Guardian, she said that she “fell in love with David Jones. I did not fall for David Bowie, that's just his persona."