When David Bowie refused to discuss his sexuality with Jonathan Ross
The media has always been obsessed with the sex lives of celebrities. Lord Byron, arguably the first modern celebrity, was constantly making headlines with his scandalous sexual escapades, the most famous of which involved one Lady Caroline Lamb posting the poet a sample of her pubic hair before stabbing herself in desperation and cutting off their relationship. The papers went wild for sex then, and they go wild for it now – as David Bowie was reminded during a conversation with Jonathon Ross in the early 2000s.
When David Bowie passed away, he left in his wake countless fans who remembered him not only as a pop idol but as an LGBTQ+ icon. With his androgynous fashion sense and outlandish theatricality, he was one of the first mainstream pop stars to make otherness look sexy. Even after he killed off Ziggy Stardust, he continued to challenge his audience’s understanding of gender, sexuality and identity with his Shakespearean fascination with costume and alter-ego.
Bowie’s career coincided with a period in which attitudes towards homosexuality were beginning to change. Though same-sex relationships were still treated with suspicion and hostility by the majority of the general public, in 1967, the UK government implemented some new recommendations in the Sexual Offences act, which, backed by the Church of England and the House of Lords, partially legalised same-sex acts in the UK between men over the age of 21 when conducted in private. It was a very small step, but a step nonetheless.
Five years later, in 1972, David Bowie bravely came out as a homosexual. In the January of that year, he told journalist Mike Watts: “[I’m] gay, and always have been”. The news shocked the public, not least because Bowie was married to Angie at the time and had just welcomed his son Duncan into the world. As the ’70s progressed, however, Bowie began to distance himself from such black-and-white statements. In 1976, for example, he told Playboy, “It’s true—I am a bisexual. But I can’t deny that I’ve used that fact very well. I suppose it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Then, in 1989, Angie added more fuel to the media fire with her memoir Backstage Passes: Life on the Wild Side with David Bowie, in which she suggested that Bowie and Mick Jagger had slept together after a night out partying. “[I]went upstairs to her bedroom, slowly pushed the door open, and there they were: Mick Jagger and David Bowie, naked in bed together, sleeping. Both men woke up with a start. ‘Oh, hello,’ said Bowie, clearly taken by surprise. ‘How are you?’”
The fascination with Bowie’s sexuality continued well into his autumn years. In this interview with Jonathon Ross, Bowie does his best to bat away intrusive questions about the nature of his sexuality. He hides his frustration very well, but it’s clear he doesn’t want to play ball. “I just got me leg over a lot,” he says, hoping that Ross will get the message. As you can see in the video below, he does not.
