David Bowie & Iman Abdulmajid’s Love Story
Iman Abdulmajid was married to David Bowie for almost 25 years before his death, but their love was as strong as ever up until Bowie succumbed to liver cancer on January 10, 2016.
The Somalian model shared pictured of David Bowie on Instagram for his birthday, and even posted a quote that said, “Sometimes you will never know the true value of a moment until it becomes a memory.” Most people know about David Bowie’s career as a musician, but only a few people know about the love of his life, Iman. That’s because they chose to live their romantic life out of the spotlight. As she said before, “We are very private so we decided from early on that we will keep the press and editors and everybody out of our house.”
Iman and David met at a dinner party they both attended in Los Angeles in 1990. For David, it was love at first sight, and he admitted he was already “naming the children the first night we met.” as reported by E Online. For Iman, however, it was quite different. She has been married and divorced twice before, and if a new love came along, she said that man would not be a rock star.
David Bowie told Hello magazine about the first time he met Iman.
“My attraction to her was immediate and all-encompassing. I couldn’t sleep for the excitement of our first date. That she would be my wife, in my head, was a done deal.”
In an interview with The Guardian two years ago, Iman admitted that she didn’t want to get involved with David Bowie at first.
“I did not want to get involved with a rock star. No way. It is not a sane thing to do… I was not ready for a relationship.”
Iman Abdulmajid was first married at 18-years-old to a Somali. However, things didn’t work out, and the marriage ended when Iman went to pursue her career as a model in the U.S. In 1977, Iman was married to Spencer Haywood, a basketball player. The two shared a daughter together, but they divorced 10 years after their marriage. David Bowie, on the other hand, was married to Angie Bowie from 1970 to 1980.
Iman met David Bowie a few years after her divorce to Haywood. Although she was not ready to enter a new relationship, Iman says that David Bowie was persistent and wooed her into being in a relationship with him.
“David changed my mind. He wooed me. I remember once the laces on my trainers came undone and David was down on his knees in the middle of the street tying them for me. I thought to myself, ‘This one’s a keeper.'”
Iman and David eventually married in a civil ceremony Lausanne, Switzerland, on April 24, 1992. They had a second ceremony in Florence, Italy later on.
The supermodel said that it wasn’t David Bowie’s rock star status that made her fall in love with him. Instead, it was the man that David was that captivated her.
“As I always said: I fell in love with David Jones [Bowie’s real name]. I did not fall in love with David Bowie. Bowie is just a persona. He’s a singer, an entertainer. David Jones is a man I met.”
Eight years after their marriage, as AOL reported, Iman and David welcomed their baby girl, Alexandria Zahra Jones. As popular as both Iman and David were, Iman revealed to People magazine that they live quite a normal life. In a 2005 visit to their home, People caught a glimpse of life in the Jones home. Iman said, “we are very normal.” She takes their daughter to school and she also cooks for the family every night. As for keeping the passion alive? David said, “mouth to mouth resuscitation generally does the trick!”
A Harper’s Bazaar interview in 2010 showed us a glimpse of what Iman and David’s marriage was like. When asked if she and David ever fought, Iman answered.
“David doesn’t fight. He is English. so he just stays quiet. I’m the screamer. Then he always makes me laugh. It’s like cabaret. I keep him entertained too. I still fancy him — totally! — after all these years.”
Iman also revealed that David Bowie enjoyed staying at home while she worked. When asked if it was a role reversal, Iman said that it isn’t.
“Are you kidding me? He makes far more money than I do. What role reversal? I don’t know why people think he’s not doing anything. He’s making his money work for him. That’s what he’s doing.”
As The Inquisitr previously reported, many of David Bowie’s celebrity fans paid tribute to him upon hearing of his passing, including Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, and Marilyn Manson. Iman posted several pictures of Bowie on her Instagram account.
[Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images]
