Share and Follow
Please note: The following article touches on topics of addiction and mental health.
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
Alexandria “Lexi” Zahra Jones, the sole daughter of music legend David Bowie and supermodel Iman, found that her family’s substantial wealth was no shield against life’s complexities. Growing up in the looming presence of two iconic figures, Jones faced significant challenges with self-esteem and a sense of identity. Her struggles were further compounded by early-onset mental health issues, which became even more acute following the untimely death of her father in January 2016 due to cancer.
Since then, the singer and artist has embarked on a journey of self-discovery and healing. Born in August 2000, Jones has made commendable progress in confronting her mental health challenges. As she entered her mid-20s, she began to speak candidly about her experiences, aiming to illuminate the struggles faced by many young people and advocate for better mental health diagnosis and treatment practices within society.
Ever since, the singer and artist has been working hard to get to the bottom of her problems and come up with answers. Jones, who was born in August 2000, has made strides in her battle. In her mid-20s, she started opening up about her experience, hoping to shed light on what many teenagers who face mental health conditions go through — and how society might improve the way it handles diagnosis and treatment.
If you or someone you know is in need of mental health support, please reach out to the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.
If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.
Despite seeking therapy, Jones found her mental health issues intensifying. “A few years later, things got heavier; I started to feel depressed,” she shared. The situation spiraled quickly, and by the age of 12, she developed an eating disorder. “I was struggling in school, faced with learning disabilities that made everything seem more challenging, and disliked my appearance. That’s when I developed bulimia,” Jones disclosed. Her struggles were compounded when, at just 14, her father, David Bowie, was diagnosed with liver cancer.
Lexi Jones’ mental health struggles started when she was 10
Lexi Jones was just 10 when she experienced her first anxiety episode. She was too young to understand or name what happened, but she underwent behavioral changes as a result. “I started seeing a therapist because my teachers noticed something was off, and so did my parents,” she said in a 20-minute Instagram video shared in February 2026. At 11, she started self-harming. “I didn’t know why I felt the way I felt, I just knew I was miserable,” she shared.
But her mental health didn’t improve with therapy. “A few years later, things got heavier; I started to feel depressed,” she said. The situation escalated quickly. When she was 12, Jones developed an eating disorder. “I was failing school, I had learning disabilities that made everything feel harder, and I hated the way I looked. And I developed bulimia,” she revealed. And then David Bowie was diagnosed with liver cancer in mid-2014. She was just 14.
Not only was she young, but she was at the height of her mental health battle. The news of her father’s illness made it all exponentially harder. “I felt broken before it even happened, and I didn’t want to stick around to watch it fall apart,” she said in the Instagram video. Amid all of her struggles, the only thing that helped was externalizing her feelings. “Art has always been a coping mechanism to get out of dark places,” she wrote the Daily Mail article. But it didn’t solve them.
If you are struggling with an eating disorder, or know someone who is, help is available. Visit the National Eating Disorders Association website or contact NEDA’s Live Helpline at 1-800-931-2237. You can also receive 24/7 Crisis Support via text (send NEDA to 741-741).
Lexi Jones was forcibly taken to rehab for addiction
Amid David Bowie’s publicly hidden cancer diagnosis, Lexi Jones started using drugs and alcohol to cope with her pain and fear for the future. “Everyone around me was experimenting, but for me, it wasn’t about fun. I wasn’t experimenting, I was escaping,” she shared in the Instagram video. For a while, Jones, who was in her first year of high school, felt that the substances helped her feel more in control. Under the influence of drugs and alcohol, she felt she didn’t have to fake it anymore.
“I felt free. Free from being agreeable, free from being the well-behaved version of myself,” she revealed. But it didn’t take her long to learn that freedom doesn’t work that way. That’s when she was sent to rehab the first time. Iman and David Bowie were desperate. Their teenage daughter was struggling with addiction, and they didn’t know what to do. So they forced Jones into treatment. It was a weekday morning, and Jones was ready for school.
“My mom called me out to the living room. My dad, my godmother, and my mom were all standing there,” she shared. Bowie read her a letter he had written. Jones only remembers the last line: “I’m sorry we have to do this.” Two large men then walked in the door and told her to go with them. She resisted. She kicked and screamed and held onto the table leg. “They pulled me away from everything I knew,” she shared. That marked the beginning of Jones’ long experience with the treatment system.
If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
Lexi Jones was away when David Bowie died
Lexi Jones was sent to wilderness therapy, where she stayed for three months. “It felt like boot camp’s weird cousin, and it was disguised as something therapeutic,” she described. After she completed the program, she went to a residential treatment center in Utah, where she stayed for more than a year. This revelation sheds a new, somber light on Bowie’s official death announcement. “David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family after a courageous 18 month battle with cancer.”
That didn’t include his daughter, who was more than 2,000 miles away from him when he died in his home in New York City. The post has always weighed heavily on her. “It made me physically ill because the whole family was there, except for me,” she said. Jones holds onto the fact that she spoke to her dad on his birthday, two days before he died. “I told him I loved him and he said it back and we both knew,” she said. Bowie had often shared how Jones had enriched his life and expressed fear at the prospect of leaving her far too early.
After all, he was 53 when she was born. “There’s such a cloud of melancholia about knowing I’m going to have to leave my daughter on her own,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Front Row (via Hello!). As he predicted, his death shattered his daughter. And it worsened her addiction, even amid the treatment. “I confused living life with surviving life’s days by filling my body’s bottomless void, drowning myself in toxins and poison,” she wrote in the Daily Mail article.
Lexi Jones has complicated feelings toward her parents
Lexi Jones felt completely abandoned by her parents when she was taken to the wilderness rehab program. She was just 14, a child calling out for her parents as the men tied a rope around her body. “I was screaming for someone to help me, but no one did,” she shared in the Instagram video. Iman, David Bowie, and her godmother just stood there. “They were crying, but they let it happen,” she said.
Jones’ account drew criticism directed at Iman and Bowie, but she later clarified that hadn’t been her intention. She understands that her parents found themselves in a difficult situation, trying to handle a cancer diagnosis that proved fatal and a teenage daughter whose mental health was in free fall. “They were trying to help a child who was struggling in ways none of us fully understood at the time,” she wrote in a subsequent Instagram post.
Jones explained that her intention with her video was never to place blame on her parents — whom she loves and is grateful for — but to address the realities of teenagers who go into the treatment system. “Those feelings can exist at the same time as love for the people who were trying to help you,” she continued. Jones often uses social media to express her bond with her parents, noting she goes out dancing with Iman in a December 2025 post and celebrating Bowie’s birthday in January 2026. “Da big 79 today. Happy birthday pops, miss ya!” she captioned the post, illustrating the complexities of her relationship with Iman and Bowie.
Lexi Jones was diagnosed with autism as an adult
After living years with mental health and identity issues, Lexi Jones learned that there was an underlying cause for a lot of her confusing feelings and behaviors. She was neurodivergent and unaware of it. In June 2025, she shared that she had been diagnosed with autism. Finally, after so many years, the pieces fell into place. “After a long and exhausting process of questioning myself, I finally got the clarify I had been searching for,” she wrote in part in an essay shared on Instagram.
Jones discussed lifelong efforts to fit in that left her burned out and even more depressed. “I never really felt like I belonged anywhere, and it ultimately left me exhausted from masking,” she continued, referring to the term that describes the strategy used by people with autism to appear neurotypical. In the caption, Jones discussed the health care system’s shortcomings in diagnosing girls. Indeed, it is estimated that 80% of girls with autism reach adulthood undiagnosed. “We are often conditioned to mask, mirror, and internalize,” she wrote.
With her post, Jones hoped to help other women with late diagnoses to see that their experience is valid. “Stories like this deserve to be seen,” she wrote. Ever since her diagnosis, Jones has become vocal in her advocacy for improvements in how autism is studied and talked about. In December 2025, she shared an article she wrote criticizing the research into autism conducted primarily by neurotypical researchers. “This kind of research can only ever capture what autism looks like from the outside,” she penned.