Iman Abdulmajid – Wife and Life Partner of David Bowie

Early life in Somalia

Iman was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, on 25 July 1955. Her father, Mohamed Abdulmajid, was a diplomat who later served as Somalia’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia, while her mother, Mariam, worked as a gynaecologist. She grew up in an educated Muslim family in which academic achievement and personal independence were strongly encouraged.

Accounts of her original first name have sometimes differed. Iman has explained in interviews that she was born Zahra Mohamed Abdulmajid and that her grandfather gave her the name Iman. The name, associated with faith in Arabic, became the name by which she would eventually be known throughout the world.

When her father’s diplomatic work took the family to Saudi Arabia, Iman was sent to boarding school in Egypt. Her education exposed her to several languages and cultures from an early age. She became fluent in Somali, Arabic, Italian, French and English, an ability that would later help her work internationally.

Becoming a refugee

Somalia underwent a military coup in October 1969, followed by increasing political instability. Iman‘s family eventually fled the country and sought safety in Kenya. By 1972, when Iman was still a teenager, the life she had known as the daughter of a diplomat had been replaced by the uncertainty of becoming a refugee.

This experience remained central to her identity. Iman has repeatedly rejected romanticised accounts of displacement, emphasising that refugees are usually people forced to leave their homes because they fear for their safety. She has also credited humanitarian workers in Kenya with helping her during a period when she was young and separated from much of her family.

Her later advocacy for refugees therefore grew from personal experience rather than from a distant association with humanitarian work. Throughout her public life, she has continued to identify herself both as a Muslim and as a refugee, preserving the connection between her international career and her Somali background.

Political science and discovery in Nairobi

After settling in Kenya, Iman studied political science at the University of Nairobi. In 1975, photographer Peter Beard approached her while she was walking in Nairobi and asked whether he could photograph her. Iman initially regarded the approach with suspicion and agreed only after negotiating payment sufficient to help cover her university expenses.

The meeting has often been surrounded by a fabricated story claiming that Beard discovered Iman while she was herding goats and that she spoke no English. The tale was created as publicity for her arrival in the United States. In reality, she was an educated, multilingual university student from a diplomatic family.

Iman initially went along with aspects of the publicity story because of the attention it generated, but she later corrected it publicly. The episode became an early example of how Western fashion and media attempted to present African women through exotic stereotypes rather than through the reality of their lives.

Arrival in New York

Beard’s photographs attracted the attention of the Wilhelmina modelling agency, and Iman moved to New York in 1975. She entered an industry in which Black models faced fewer opportunities, lower fees and frequent pressure to conform to narrow Western ideas of beauty.

Her first major fashion work appeared in American Vogue in 1976. She quickly became known for her distinctive presence, elegant movement and ability to interpret dramatically different designs. Rather than functioning simply as a clothes model, she approached fashion photography and runway work as performance.

Iman worked with designers including Halston, Calvin Klein, Gianni Versace, Donna Karan, Issey Miyake, Thierry Mugler and Yves Saint Laurent. Saint Laurent regarded her as an important muse and created the African Queen collection with her in mind. She was also photographed by figures including Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Helmut Newton, Annie Leibovitz and Arthur Elgort.

Challenging inequality in fashion

Iman‘s success did not protect her from discrimination. She discovered that Black models could be offered lower fees than white models for equivalent work and instructed her representatives to demand equal payment. She was willing to refuse assignments rather than accept a system that treated her as less valuable.

She also challenged journalists and editors when their descriptions relied on racial stereotypes. Her visibility helped broaden the representation of Black beauty in fashion, but Iman consistently argued that representation alone was insufficient unless it was accompanied by equal opportunity and professional respect.

Her career developed during a period in which the fashion industry frequently attempted to position successful Black models as rivals competing for a single available place. Iman later used her influence to support younger models, including Naomi Campbell, and to argue that several generations of Black women should be able to work simultaneously without being treated as interchangeable.

Acting and screen work

Alongside modelling, Iman appeared in film and television. Her screen credits included a role in Out of Africa in 1985, as well as appearances in No Way Out, L.A. Story and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. In the latter film she played Martia, a shape-shifting prisoner who assists Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy.

She also appeared in television programmes and later worked as a presenter. Her screen career remained secondary to her work in fashion and business, but it demonstrated her ability to move between modelling, acting, commercial work and television without being confined to a single professional identity.

Retirement from full-time modelling

During the 1980s, Iman began reconsidering the direction of her life and career. A serious traffic accident in 1983 left her with several injuries and required months of recovery. The experience encouraged her to examine priorities beyond the fashion industry.

She retired from full-time modelling in 1989. Although she continued to appear in selected editorial projects and public campaigns, she no longer wished to maintain the continuous schedule of runway shows and fashion assignments that had defined the previous fourteen years.

Her retirement came shortly before she met David Bowie. By that time, Iman had already established an international career and an identity entirely independent of Bowie’s fame. This was an important foundation of their later relationship: both entered it as mature adults with established careers, families and public lives.

Founding IMAN Cosmetics

Meeting David Bowie

Iman and David Bowie met in Los Angeles in 1990 through Bowie’s friend and hairdresser Teddy Antolin. Antolin arranged what was effectively a blind date, inviting Iman to a small dinner at which Bowie was one of only four people present.

This meeting has sometimes been incorrectly described as taking place at a Bowie concert or public show. The most consistent first-hand accounts identify it as a deliberately arranged private dinner. Antolin believed that Bowie and Iman might be compatible and created an opportunity for them to meet away from a large social gathering.

Bowie later said that his attraction to Iman was immediate. Iman was more cautious. She had already experienced marriage, divorce and life in the public eye, and she did not initially want a relationship with a musician or celebrity. Bowie therefore had to earn her trust through his behaviour rather than through his reputation.

Bowie’s courtship

Marriage in Lausanne and Florence

Bowie proposed to Iman in Paris. On 24 April 1992, they were legally married in a private civil ceremony at a registry office in Lausanne, Switzerland. The deliberately quiet ceremony reflected their desire to keep the legal marriage separate from the attention surrounding two internationally famous people.

A larger church wedding followed on 6 June 1992 at the American Church of Saint James in Florence, Italy. Friends and family attended the ceremony, which was photographed by Brian Aris. Iman wore a gown created by designer Hervé Léger, while Bowie wore formal morning dress.

The two dates are sometimes confused. The Lausanne ceremony on 24 April was their civil marriage, while the Florence ceremony on 6 June was their formal church wedding and the anniversary they also publicly commemorated.

The Wedding and The Wedding Song

This remains Iman‘s most direct and verifiable connection with a Bowie studio album. She did not perform on the record and should not be described as a musical collaborator, but their marriage provided the inspiration for two of its defining compositions.

The true history of Abdulmajid

The Bowie instrumental Abdulmajid is frequently misunderstood. It was not newly composed as a gift to Iman after they met. The music originated during the sessions connected with Bowie’s 1977 album “Heroes”, more than a decade before their relationship began.

The previously unreleased instrumental was included as a bonus track on the 1991 Rykodisc reissue of “Heroes”. By the time of its release, Bowie and Iman were together, and the piece was given her surname, Abdulmajid.

Composer Philip Glass later used Abdulmajid as one of the movements in his Symphony No. 4 “Heroes”, completed in 1996 and based on material associated with Bowie’s album. Glass’s treatment was therefore part of a wider symphonic interpretation of “Heroes”, not a separate personal composition created for Iman.

A private life in New York

They occasionally appeared together at fashion events, charity benefits, film premieres and award ceremonies, but these appearances represented only a small part of their relationship. They did not routinely invite the press into their home or use intimate details of their marriage as publicity.

A relationship between two established careers

Shared appearances in fashion and photography

Although protective of their private life, Bowie and Iman occasionally appeared together in carefully chosen photographic projects. Their combined association with music, fashion and visual culture made them natural subjects for leading photographers and magazines.

One of their best-known sessions was photographed by Bruce Weber in South Africa for Vogue. Iman later remembered the project as resembling a second honeymoon rather than a conventional fashion assignment. A photograph showing Bowie partly shielding a kiss with his hat became one of the couple’s favourite portraits because it captured affection while also suggesting privacy.

Such images contributed to their public reputation as a glamorous couple, but they were produced within controlled editorial settings. Away from those projects, Bowie and Iman continued to limit access to their home and family.

Omikron: The Nomad Soul

In 1999, Bowie became closely involved with the video game Omikron: The Nomad Soul. He contributed music, appeared through several characters and worked with guitarist Reeves Gabrels on material connected with the project.

Iman also appeared within the game’s fictional world as a character known as Iman 631. Her participation created a rare project in which both she and Bowie appeared in related digital roles, although her involvement should not be overstated as a musical collaboration.

The project reflected Bowie’s interest in emerging digital media at the end of the 1990s. Iman‘s presence provided a small but documented link between their public images inside the same fictional environment.

The birth of Alexandria

On 15 August 2000, Bowie and Iman welcomed their daughter, Alexandria Zahra Jones, usually known as Lexi. Iman already had a daughter, Zulekha Haywood, from her marriage to basketball player Spencer Haywood, while Bowie had a son, Duncan Jones, from his marriage to Angie Bowie.

The birth of Lexi became one of the most significant events of their marriage. Bowie and Iman spoke about the happiness she brought to their lives, but they were careful not to make her childhood part of a continuing publicity campaign.

They shared daily parenting responsibilities, including school runs. Iman has recalled that Bowie was relaxed and playful with Lexi, while she more often assumed the role of disciplinarian. Their daughter initially understood him simply as her father rather than as the public figure recognised around the world.

Protecting their family

Both Bowie and Iman understood the pressures created by international fame. Their approach was not to deny their public careers, but to establish boundaries around their daughter and home.

They avoided constantly appearing together for publicity and did not present their marriage as a commercial brand. Even ordinary occasions such as Valentine’s Day dinners could attract attention, so they often celebrated privately rather than entering restaurants where other diners and photographers might observe them.

Their success in preserving privacy explains why many aspects of their marriage remain known only through the limited memories they chose to share. Historical accounts should respect those boundaries rather than filling the gaps with assumptions about conversations, medical decisions or private influence.

Iman‘s humanitarian work

Iman‘s humanitarian work developed alongside her careers in fashion and business. Her experience as a Somali refugee gave particular meaning to her support for displaced people, women and children affected by conflict and poverty.

She has worked with organisations and campaigns including CARE, Keep a Child Alive, Save the Children, the Enough Project and initiatives connected with conflict minerals and violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She also ended a professional association with De Beers amid concerns surrounding conflict diamonds.

In 2019, CARE named Iman its first Global Advocate. In this role she has drawn attention to refugees and emphasised how humanitarian organisations helped her when she was a displaced teenager in Kenya.

Bowie also supported charitable projects during his career, and the couple attended selected benefits together. However, their separate records of advocacy should not be combined into an unsupported claim that they operated a formal joint humanitarian organisation or campaign.

Recognition within fashion

Bowie’s later years

After Bowie stopped touring in 2004, he spent considerably more time away from public performance. Family life in New York became increasingly important, while his musical activity continued largely outside the public gaze.

He returned unexpectedly in 2013 with The Next Day and released his final album, Blackstar, on 8 January 2016. Iman respected the privacy surrounding his health, and the wider public did not know the seriousness of his illness before his death.

David Bowie died on 10 January 2016, two days after his sixty-ninth birthday. His death ended a marriage that had lasted almost twenty-four years and a relationship that had begun approximately twenty-six years earlier.

Loss and public mourning

The worldwide response to Bowie’s death placed Iman in an unusual position. Millions of listeners mourned an artist whose work had shaped their lives, while she and their family were grieving a husband and father.

Iman has acknowledged that the affection expressed by Bowie’s admirers could provide comfort, but she has also explained that public mourning continually reminded her of his absence. The person celebrated internationally as David Bowie remained, within the family, David Jones.

After his death, fans gathered outside the couple’s New York apartment. Iman later moved with Lexi to California for a period, partly to protect her daughter from being confronted every day by photographers and public reminders of her father’s death.

Remembering David

Love Memoir

A continuing creative life

In the years following Bowie’s death, Iman continued her work as an entrepreneur, advocate and public figure. She also began drawing and painting, activities associated within her family with Bowie and their daughter Lexi.

She has described creating charcoal drawings connected with the anniversary of Bowie’s death. These works are private acts of remembrance rather than attempts to establish a professional career as an artist.

Her public work has continued to address fashion, inclusive beauty, refugee experiences and racial inequality. She has also spoken about ageing as a privilege, rejecting industries that portray age as something women should fear or conceal.

Iman in Bowie’s personal and creative world

Iman‘s importance within David Bowie’s life does not depend on describing her as a musical collaborator. Her documented role was more personal and, in many ways, more fundamental: she was his wife, the mother of their daughter and the person with whom he built a private family life during the final decades of his career.

Her connection with his creative work can be identified where the evidence is clear. Her surname became the title of the previously unreleased instrumental Abdulmajid; their marriage inspired The Wedding and The Wedding Song; she appeared within Omikron: The Nomad Soul; and they occasionally participated together in photography and fashion projects.

Beyond those documented examples, the details of their private conversations and artistic exchanges belong to them. Claims that Iman directed particular albums, songs or career decisions should not be made without first-hand evidence.

Legacy

Iman Abdulmajid‘s historical importance extends far beyond her marriage to David Bowie. She helped challenge racial barriers within international fashion, demanded equal professional treatment, created a pioneering cosmetics company and used her experience as a refugee to support humanitarian advocacy.

Her marriage to Bowie joined two people who had already built substantial and independent careers. Their public image combined music and fashion, but the durability of their relationship was rooted in a private life they consciously protected.

Within Bowie’s story, Iman is inseparable from the final twenty-six years of his life. She was present during the creation of his later work, the birth and upbringing of their daughter, his withdrawal from touring, his return with The Next Day and the private period surrounding Blackstar.

The most historically responsible description of her Bowie connection is therefore neither “muse” nor “collaborator” unless attached to a specific documented work. She was David Bowie’s wife and life partner, while remaining an internationally significant figure with her own career, convictions and legacy.

Official Website & Further Information

Further information about Iman‘s beauty company and its continuing work can be found through the official IMAN Cosmetics website:

imancosmetics.com

DavidBowieWorld.com is dedicated to documenting the careers of David Bowie’s collaborators and the people within his wider creative and personal world through carefully researched historical information and, where available, first-hand contributions from the individuals themselves. This page will continue to be updated as new verified information becomes available.

Article Origin

This article has been researched and written exclusively for DavidBowieWorld.com. It draws upon verified biographical information, contemporary reporting, official David Bowie archive material and first-hand interviews in which Iman and David Bowie discussed their meeting, marriage, family life and enduring relationship.

The article distinguishes between Iman‘s documented connections with Bowie’s work and unsupported assumptions about private creative influence. No claim of musical collaboration has been made where no direct recording or performance credit exists.

© DavidBowieWorld.com — David Bowie Collaborations & Creative Circle Archive.

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