David Bowie's daughter Alexandria Lexi Jones recalls painful childhood trauma: 'That is abuse'

Alexandria 'Lexi' Jones has opened up candidly about being removed from her family home as a teenager and sent to treatment while her father, David Bowie, was dying of cancer.

In an Instagram video, the 25-year-old said the experience left her feeling “stripped of any right to stay in my own life.” 

Reportedly, her family made the decision as she struggled with depression and an eating disorder. Bowie shared Lexi with his wife, supermodel Iman.

Reflecting on her childhood, she said, “Adults would talk to me differently than they would talk to other kids. Some were not interested in me as a person at all, and only as a proximity to something else.”

She added, “Something hit me pretty young before I was around 10."

“I started seeing a therapist because my teachers noticed something was off, and so did my parents. That was around the time I had my first anxiety attack.”

Lexi continued, “I developed bulimia when I was 12. I started self-harming when I was eleven.”

She added. “I felt stupid, incompetent, unworthy, useless, unloveable, and having successful parents only made it worse.”

Describing wilderness therapy, she said, “They strip-searched me. They handed me clothes… and a giant a** backpack that was bigger than me at the time.

“I had never heard of anything like this before. I didn’t know wilderness therapy existed. I was a city girl.”

After being transferred to a Utah centre, she revealed speaking to her father shortly before his death.

“I had the luxury of speaking to him two days before, on his birthday. I told him I loved him, and he said it back, and we both knew.”

She added, “Then I saw the post… David Bowie passed away, surrounded by his whole family. It made me physically ill because, yeah, the whole family was there. Except for me.”

Lexi concluded, “The mental and emotional manipulation I experienced is something I will not forget. And I won’t pretend it didn’t happen because that is abuse too."