David Bowie’s daughter Alexandria “Lexi” Jones has spoken out once again — clarifying that despite describing being “forcibly” removed from her home and sent to multiple controversial treatment centres as a teenager, she does not blame her family for what happened.
The 25-year-old took to Instagram to address growing public reaction to her earlier revelations, stressing that her intention was never to assign fault — but to share her experience in the hope it might help others who have lived through similar struggles.
Lexi, the only child of the late music icon and supermodel Iman, explained that her words were being interpreted in ways she never intended.
“I’ve seen a lot of interpretations of what I shared and I want to clarify something important,” she wrote.
“My story was never meant to place blame on my parents. I love my parents deeply and I don’t hold resentment towards them.”
She went on to say that her family had been trying to help her through something “none of us fully understood at the time,” and that she never wanted her story to be framed as one of family conflict.
David Bowie died in January 2016 at the age of 69 — just two days after releasing his final album Blackstar. Lexi’s mother, Iman, is now 70.
In her statement, Lexi emphasised that it is possible to hold two truths at once.
“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,” she explained.
“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 said she chose to speak publicly because many people who passed through similar programmes are left carrying confusion and silence.
“Hearing from others who related has already shown me the message reached who it was meant to reach,” she added.
Lexi was also clear that she was not inviting speculation about her family.
“I’m not asking anyone to assign fault to anyone in my life. My intention is conversation and understanding about a system — not judgement of individuals.”
“I spoke about something that shaped me in hopes someone else might feel less alone in theirs.”
Previously, Lexi described how she was just 14 years old when two men — “well over six feet tall” — arrived to take her to a treatment facility.
She recalled her father reading her a letter beforehand, ending with the words: “I’m sorry we have to do this.”
Reflecting on her childhood, Lexi said she often felt treated differently because of who her parents were.
“Some adults were not interested in me as a person at all,” she said, adding that she felt she “existed as an idea” rather than a real individual.
She revealed she began therapy before the age of ten after teachers noticed something was wrong, and that her first anxiety attack came soon after.
“I started to feel depressed. I was failing school. I had learning disabilities that made everything feel harder. I hated the way I looked.”
Lexi said she developed bulimia at 12, began self-harming at 11, and struggled deeply with self-worth.
“I felt stupid, incompetent, unworthy, useless, unloveable,” she admitted, adding that having famous, successful parents only intensified those feelings.
“It felt like I would never live up to them.”
After her father’s cancer diagnosis, Lexi said she turned to drink and drugs — not for fun, but to escape.
“When the party ended for everybody else, I kept going,” she said. “I drank and got high alone.”
Eventually, an intervention took place — one she described as deeply traumatic.
After Bowie read his letter, two men entered the room and told her she could leave “the easy way or the hard way.”
“I resisted. I screamed. I held onto the table leg,” she recalled.
“They grabbed me, pulled me away from everything I knew. I was screaming for someone to help me — but no one did.”
Lexi said she was placed into a black SUV and driven away, alone with two strangers who refused to tell her where she was going.
She spent 91 days in a “wilderness therapy” programme, living outdoors in winter conditions with minimal privacy and strict monitoring — including being forced to count out loud every time she used the toilet.
Wilderness therapy, also known as outdoor behavioural healthcare, is a highly controversial form of treatment in the US.
Paris Hilton has since become one of its most prominent critics, alleging abuse during her own teenage placement and successfully lobbying for the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act, passed in December 2024.
Lexi described being strip-searched upon arrival and issued basic clothing and a backpack “bigger than me.”
After three months, she was sent directly to a residential treatment centre in Utah, where similar restrictions continued.
It was there that she learned her father had died.
“I spoke to him two days before, on his birthday,” she said. “We both knew.”
Then she saw the announcement stating Bowie had passed away “surrounded by his whole family.”
“It made me physically ill,” she said. “Because the whole family was there. Except for me.”
Lexi said her grief was processed within the programme through a structured “Grief and Loss Phase,” with assigned expectations and milestones.
“At the time, I thought that was normal,” she said. “That was my only frame of reference.”
After returning home shortly before turning 16, she admitted she slipped back into old patterns and was later sent to another programme — a cycle that left her feeling like a problem being passed along.
Despite everything, Lexi said the experience shaped her emotional awareness and resilience.
“I was forced to look inward before I even had a chance to look outward,” she said.
But she admitted lasting effects remain.
“I still flinch when things feel too controlled,” she confessed. “I still scan rooms for rules I haven’t been told yet.”
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Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/
