Alexandria “Lexi” Jones, the daughter of late music icon David Bowie, has shared deeply personal claims about her childhood, alleging 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 says 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 that came with her family’s status, she admitted she often questioned whether people were drawn to her for who she was or for who her parents were.
As a teenager, those doubts intensified into serious mental health challenges.
Throughout the video, Lexi spoke about being sent to “treatment” at 14, later explaining that she was dealing with depression, an eating disorder and substance abuse.
She said her situation worsened after her father was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2014, a moment she described as her breaking point.
While others around her experimented socially, Lexi said her substance use was about escape rather than enjoyment.
“For me, it wasn’t about fun,” she said.
“I wasn’t experimenting, I was escaping. Escaping from my complicated mind, my complicated family, my complicated school. When the party ended for everyone else, I kept going. And I drank and got high alone.”
Lexi claimed she was taken from her family home against her will shortly after Bowie’s diagnosis.
She recalled her father reading her a letter beforehand and remembers the final line clearly: “I’m sorry we have to do this.”
She described two men arriving at the house on a weekday morning and giving her what she felt was an ultimatum.
“They told me I could do this the easy way or the hard way,” she said. “I chose the hard way.”
She alleged she clung to a table leg, screaming, as she was pulled into a black SUV and driven away without being told where she was going.
According to Lexi, she was first taken to a wilderness therapy programme, where she spent 91 days living outdoors through winter conditions.
She said she slept under tarps, learned survival skills and was strip-searched on arrival before being issued basic gear and a heavy backpack.
“We made fires by stripping birch bark and striking flint and steel,” she recalled. “I was a city girl. I didn’t even know this kind of programme existed.”
After three months, Lexi said she was transferred to a residential treatment centre in Utah, where she remained for more than a year. It was there that she learned of her 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 to him two days before, on his birthday,” she said. “I told him I loved him and he said it back, and we both knew.”
She also spoke about the pain of seeing public statements saying Bowie died surrounded by his whole family. The wording, she said, made her feel physically sick.
“Yeah, the whole family was there. Except for me,” Lexi said.
Bowie, who also had a son, Duncan Zowie Jones, with his former wife Angie Bowie, died on 10 January 2016 from liver cancer.
