ABC News has confirmed that legendary musician David Bowie has died at age 69. While initially thought to be a hoax, a representative for the rock legend said that sadly, the news was true.
News first broke on Bowie’s Facebook page, with a post that explained that the musician, “died peacefully … [Sunday] … surrounded by his family after a courageous 18 month battle with cancer.
While many of you will share in this loss, we ask that you respect the family’s privacy during their time of grief.”
Bowie’s son, movie director Duncan Jones, tweeted, “Very sorry and sad to say it’s true. I’ll be offline for a while. Love to all.” Jones was Bowie’s son with his first wife, Angie Bowie; they divorced in 1980. Bowie had been married to supermodel Iman since 1992; they have one daughter, Alexandria Zahra Jones.
Bowie, who turned 69 on Friday, had just released his 25th album, Blackstar, which was hailed by critics and fans alike. The general public was unaware of his illness.
Bowie, a singer, songwriter, actor and fashion icon, has been an influence in some way on nearly every modern artist, from Kanye West to Madonna to U2 to Lorde to Lady Gaga. His influence can be felt in punk rock, new wave and alternative music, ambient, dance, electronic music, and beyond. Though the decades, his music encompassed pop, glam rock, R&B, funk, dance, soul, progressive rock, hard rock and more.
While his breakthrough hit was 1969’s “Space Oddity,” about ill-fated astronaut Major Tom, Bowie’s defining moment was the creation of his alter-ego, Ziggy Stardust, a bisexual alien rock superstar whose exploits were documented in the 1972 glam-rock masterpiece The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars.
Around that time, Bowie also publicly stated that he was gay, but that might have been a publicity stunt. Still, his gender-bending wardrobe, outrageous style and fluid sexuality made him irresistible to men and women alike. In 1976, he said he was bisexual, but in 1983, he told Rolling Stone, that he “always was a closet heterosexual,” and said that publicly declaring he was bisexual was, “the biggest mistake I ever made.” Asked about that comment in 2002, he said that he felt stating that he was bisexual ultimately, “stood in the way of so much I wanted to do” in America, because it, “is a very puritanical place.”
Bowie’s first U.S. #1 was “Fame,” co-written by his good friend, John Lennon. His only other U.S. #1 hit was 1983’s “Let’s Dance,” but his catalog includes a string of classic songs: “Heroes,” “Changes,” “China Girl,” “Rebel Rebel,” “Diamond Dogs,” “Suffragette City,” “Life on Mars,” “Modern Love” and more. He collaborated with artists as diverse as Iggy Pop, Bing Crosby, Queen, Mick Jagger and Tina Turner. He produced albums for Iggy Pop’s Stooges, Lou Reed and Mott the Hoople, for whom he wrote the hit “All the Young Dudes.”
As an actor, Bowie, who was trained in theater and mime, appeared in films as diverse as Labyrinth, The Man Who Fell to Earth, The Hunger, A View to a Kill, The Last Temptation of Christ, The Prestige and Zoolander. “Lazarus,” the title track from Blackstar, was also the basis for a stage musical that opened in New York City last week.
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