Defending the Duke: David Bowie’s “problematic” actions debunked
You’d think that after two years people would have figured it out by now, and yet here we are. Alright let’s get started.
“David Bowie was a sexual predator.”
TW: CSA, statutory rape, rape
This claim originated from an interview with former groupie Lori Mattix of the “Baby Groupie” scene of the 1970s that was republished on The Thrillist the day after David’s death, where she claimed she lost her virginity to him in 1973 when she was 15 years old and he was 26. Additionally, she claimed that she kept seeing him over ten years, however this causes a problem with consistency because David’s personal life was scrutinized more than the average rock star (most likely because of him coming out as bisexual), and the two were never photographed together unlike Mattix’s relationships with other rock stars during the 1970s. More problems with the consistency of her claims include that in some interviews she said she lost her virginity to David and in others she said she had her first time with Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, and certain circumstances that contradict her side of the story (or stories).
For example, in an 1985 interview with Stephen Davis, she stated that she had her first time with Jimmy Page in 1972 while the band was in California for their summer tour. She later said that she was having sex with David before Page. This provides an inconsistency because David’s Ziggy Stardust tour came to California in October 1972, months after Led Zeppelin’s summer tour. In a later interview, which was made available online in 2009, she said she was a virgin when she met Page.
In an 1986 interview with Peter Gillman, she said that while eating at the Rainbow Bar in March 1973 with her friend and fellow groupie, the late Sable Starr, David spotted her and got his bodyguard to invite her to his suite, and she accepted. She said they had sex for five or six hours and she convinced him to let Starr join them, and all fell asleep afterwards, and the two snuck out before David’s then-wife Angie would arrive. In a different interview with Paul Trynka however, she said that in October 1972 she and Starr snuck into his Beverly Hilton suite and convinced a tired David to sleep with them before they snuck out without being seen.
In the Thrillist interview, Mattix said David approached her in October 1972, but she rejected him. When he came back in March 1973, he called her and invited her to dinner. John Lennon and Yoko Ono joined them for dinner before she and David left for his Beverly Hilton suite, they and Sable Starr had a threesome, and Angie walked in on them the next morning. In addition to her earlier interviews contradicting this so-called recollection, David didn’t meet Lennon until September 1974 when they were introduced to each other by Elizabeth Taylor at one of her parties. And David stayed at the Hyatt hotel in March 1973, not the Beverly Hilton.
In the same interview, she said she attended a recording session in 1975 when she was 17, where John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Mick Jagger, and a bunch of other artists were there, and she slept with Jagger after the session wrapped up. Another inconsistency with this is that the only time Lennon and McCartney jammed together after the Beatles broke up was the year before, in march 1974. Not only that, there is no evidence to suggest that Jagger was at that session in 1975.
Mattix’s claims were further contradicted by Pamela Des Barnes, another former groupie who was in her 20s during the 1970s (one year younger than David), in her memoir, I’m with the Band. Des Barnes was in a relationship with Jimmy Page by 1972, however she ended their relationship and moved in with Frank and Gail Zappa and worked for them as a nanny in February 1972, because he was sleeping with Mattix and leaving Des Barnes in the dust. The breakup and move happened a month before David’s tour came to Long Beach, when Mattix claims she lost her virginity to him.
(Additionally, along with changing her story about it many times including how old she was when it happened, she said once how she met him in LA in 1973 five months beforehand, but the his tour didn’t have a stop in California at that point, and the last time he really visited LA at that point was 1972. She said it happened at the Beverly Hilton in 1973, but the only time he is photographed there is in 1972.)
In 1987, he was falsely accused of rape by 30 year-old Wanda Nichols who claimed he exposed her to AIDS. They were both tested and both their results were negative. He was cleared of the charges. (x) (x)
Not to mention that this kind of behavior sounds completely out of his character. On one of his later tours, he threatened to fire his drummer for directing teenage girls to his hotel room (x), according to one of the commentaries of the 1986 Jim Henson film Labyrinth, a kiss scene was originally written but he refused to do it because his co-star Jennifer Connelly was 14 at the time (x), and when he was in the band Tin Machine he wrote the song “Shopping for Girls” which is about and brings awareness to child prostitution in Thailand (x).
Now with that said, this isn’t to say that the “Baby Groupie” scene never happened. Although Mattix obviously lied about him, there are perverts in the rock music industry like Kim Fowley and Gary Glitter, and the whole Baby Groupie scene and the idea of teens having sex with adults were being encouraged in the 70s, according to the June 1973 issue (pages 59–61) of Star Magazine
and this quiz in the March 1973 issue (pages 62–63) of Star to see if you have what it takes to make an older guy like you.
They were encouraging these young girls to go out, dress up and wear makeup to make themselves look older, act older by smoking and drinking, carry fake IDs, and lie about their ages. Even though I don’t trust her word, I do feel really sorry for her for being manipulated by disgusting men and bad influences in the 70s into thinking this was okay. It’s especially horrid once you consider how rape culture was at a high point in the 70′s and how a lot of disgusting things were being romanticized and encouraged.
(The Runaways promotional poster from the 70s with bodice, ass and crotch shots of the then teenage girls and a then 24 year old Tony Parsons calling them nymphets and saying the “young and extremely horny teenage females was a bonus”)
(Love’s Baby Soft Perfume ad from 1975)
“David Bowie was a racist and a n@zi sympathizer.”
This claim came from Bowie’s comments in 1976 under his persona the Thin White Duke that supposedly supported fascism. However, at this time his diet consisted only of milk, red peppers and cocaine, and he really was out of his mind at that time because he was at the height of his cocaine addiction, when he was convinced Jimmy Page was trying to steal his soul, that witches were trying to steal his semen, and wanted an exorcism done on his swimming pool because he believed Satan lived in it. When he was getting clean and coming back to his senses, he became horrified and disgusted of how his image was being used by neo-nazis. With all that crazy shit and more, do you honestly think he meant all the garbage he said? He was so out of it, he barely had any recollection of recording the album for Christ’s sake. Also, around this time he was photographed supposedly giving a n*zi salute but he was really just waving hello to his fans. He retracted and apologized for his statements in a 1977 interview for Melody Maker and later called the Duke an “ogre,” and again looked back at that period with unkind words in 1983.
Additionally, while making his blue-eyed soul album Young Americans, he gave credit to where credit was due, saying, “It’s the squashed remains of ethnic music as it survives in the age of Muzak rock, written and sung by a white limey,” and collaborating with Ava Cherry, Luther Vandross, and Carlos Alormar to give the album an authentic soul sound. (x) (x) He also encouraged Nina Simone to continue performing, and a huge supporter of Tina Turner’s career. (x)
David wrote many songs and videos with anti-nazi and anti-racism themes. The “China Girl” video serves to parody Asian female stereotypes as well as to protest colonization by making the lyrics in the POV of a colonizer to show how fucked up the mindset is, and the video, as well as the Let’s Dance video, were made as statements against racism. The Let’s Dance video in particular was very influential in Australia. David even openly criticized MTV for not playing videos from black artists. The first Tin Machine album had a direct anti-fascism and anti-net n*zi stance. He continued to protest racism throughout his career.
And also marrying Iman. Yes, yes I know. It’s true that many white celebrities who enter relationships with black partners often do it either as a front or to satisfy some eldritch fetish, and usually try to start relationships with black people who are either naive or ignorant (like, “my black boyfriend said it’s okay” and shit like that). *cough cough* K*rdashians *cough cough* But here’s the thing, this is Iman Abdulmajid we’re talking about here. This is the same woman who started her own cosmetic company for women of color, protested the lack of black models on runways with Naomi Campbell and Bethann Hardison, and supports many charities and human rights causes. Just take a look at her Twitter page. She is absolutely not ignorant or naive. She and David worked on many charitable activities and events together, including her I Am African campaign.
And I know what you’re thinking, he could have used his charity support for publicity or as a front like many celebrities in the past. *cough cough Sp*cey, W*instein, H*ffman *cough cough* But when Iman was given a Voice Award at the Save The Child’s Illumination Gala in 2016, she dedicated the award to him, saying “David was also a staunch supporter of human rights and devoted an innumerable amount of time and resources, which he chose to do anonymously. […] I share this award with him, knowing that the fire in him lit the fire in me, and vice versa. […] Good partnerships have a habit of doing that.”
“David Bowie was never bisexual.”
Okay, but let’s talk serious. This claim is more specifically saying he used bisexuality as shock value and he isn’t a good icon for the LGBT community. In 1983 he called his coming out a “mistake,”said he was only experimenting, and called himself a “closet heterosexual,” in 1993. However, there are things to heavily consider. In the 1980s he was going through a depressive period in his life with alcohol problems. In addition, he felt that his sexuality overshadowed his music in America and and wanted to change his image to appeal to a more mainstream audience (to make his career survive during that time when homophobia was on the rise so he had to shield himself; may I remind you of when he was falsely accused of giving Wanda Nichols AIDS, not to mention dealing with ignorant interviewers acting so clueless over such a simple concept). In 1993, Tin Machine failed to revive his career after the critical failures of his last two solo albums of the late 1980s, of course those problems continued. And if you think I’m reaching, take a look at what he said in an interview for Blender in 2002.
You once said that saying you were bisexual was “the biggest mistake I ever made.” Do you still believe that?
WHOODAAMANN, SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA
Interesting. [Long pause] I don’t think it was a mistake in Europe, but it was a lot tougher in America. I had no problem with people knowing I was bisexual. But I had no inclination to hold any banners or be a representative of any group of people. I knew what I wanted to be, which was a songwriter and a performer, and I felt that [bisexuality] became my headline over here for so long. America is a very puritanical place, and I think it stood in the way of so much I wanted to do. (x)
And it’s not like his impact on the LGBT+ community is nonexistent.
He was bi and a damned good LGBT icon.
And with that said, just because his most high-profile relationships were with women that doesn’t mean he wasn’t bi. A bi person can have a preference towards one sex or gender but that does not in any way diminish their attraction to the other sex or genders. There are plenty of examples of bisexual people who enter monogamous relationships with people of the opposite sex. That doesn’t make them any less bi.
One of the biggest problems I see when the Bowie/Classic rock fandom talk about this is how they completely derail the conversation to how “feminism and sjw culture is toxic and spreads lies” and other dumb shit like that. You can’t blame an entire movement for trouble caused by a few assholes on a site like this. This is Tumblr, remember? You can’t expect people to be perfect to know everything about everyone famous. Newsflash: I’ve made mistakes too. There are many more people who make up for their mistakes than you give credit for. It should only be a real problem if they refuse to believe you or ignore you after you give them solid corrections. Chances are the people like that have generally shitty views or have something to hide (like every TERF blog on here). It also upsets me when people, who I will not name (you know who you are) defend him by slut-shaming Lori Mattix or the other groupies (I won’t say why, I hope you can figure that out for yourselves).
So in conclusion, don’t believe everything you read, be patient with people but don’t take shit from anyone, don’t use people screwing up as an excuse to spread your own ignorance, stay away from books written about David by Lesley-Ann Jones, Dylan Jones, and “Backstage Passes” by Angie Bowie, and if you have written a callout post about David Bowie, don’t ever fucking do that shit again. Have a nice day.
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