Alexandria “Lexi” Jones, daughter of the late music icon David Bowie, has shared deeply personal claims about her childhood, alleging that she was forcibly sent to a treatment center during one of the most fragile periods of her life.
In a video posted to her Instagram, the 25-year-old opened up about growing up with famous parents and the struggles she said were largely hidden from public view.
Lexi, who is also the daughter of supermodel Iman, said she felt conflicted about her upbringing.
While she acknowledged being grateful for the opportunities her family’s status afforded her, she admitted that she often wondered if people were attracted to her because of who she was or because of who her parents were.
As a teenager, those doubts escalated into serious mental health issues.
Throughout the video, Lexi talked about being sent to “treatment” at age 14, and later explained that she was dealing with depression, an eating disorder, and substance abuse.
He said his situation worsened after his father was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2014, a moment he described as his breaking point.
While others around her were experimenting socially, Lexi said her substance use was about escape rather than enjoyment.
“For me, it wasn’t about fun,” he said.
“I wasn’t experimenting, I was escaping. Escaping my complicated mind, my complicated family, my complicated school. When the party was over for everyone else, I moved on. I drank and took drugs alone.”
Lexi claimed she was taken from her family home against her will shortly after Bowie’s diagnosis.
He remembers his father reading him a letter earlier and clearly remembers the last line: “I’m sorry we have to do this.”
She described two men who came to the house one weekday morning and gave her what she felt was an ultimatum.
“They told me I could do this the easy way or the hard way,” he said. “I chose the difficult path.”
She alleged that she clung to the leg of a table, screaming, as they loaded her into a black van and took her away without being told where she was going.
According to Lexi, she was first taken to a wilderness therapy program, where she spent 91 days living outdoors in winter conditions.
She said she slept under tarps, learned survival skills and was strip-searched before being given basic equipment and a heavy backpack.
“We made fires by removing birch bark and striking flint and steel,” he recalled. “I was a city girl. I didn’t even know this kind of program existed.”
After three months, Lexi said she was moved to a residential treatment center in Utah, where she remained for more than a year. It was there that he learned of his father’s death in January 2016.
She shared that she had spoken to him just two days earlier, on his birthday.
“I had the luxury of speaking with him two days before, on his birthday,” he said. “I told him I loved him and he responded, and we both knew it.”
He also spoke about the pain of seeing public statements saying that Bowie died surrounded by his entire family. The wording, she said, made her feel physically sick.
“Yeah, the whole family was there. Except me,” Lexi said.
Bowie, who also had a son, Duncan Zowie Jones, with his ex-wife Angie Bowie, died on January 10, 2016 from liver cancer.
