BEING MARRIED TO ROCK LEGEND I was drugged and raped in 1974 but never told David.. he wouldn’t have handled it well
82 Club. I didn’t drink, I didn’t do drugs. The rest of them were drinking.
“I had a Coca-Cola sitting at the bar and I was about to go and sit with them. I didn’t notice two South Americans putting a date rape drug in my drink. I collapsed and the men took me to the Seville Hotel in New York and raped me.”
She came round to find her attackers still there. “My dress, which was see-through silk, organza yellow, was covered in blood.”
In a flash she thought of her dad George M. Barnett who fought in Asia during the Second World War.
“I remembered what he told me and I started punching them. Finally, when I was tired of punching, I went downstairs. I walked to the 82 Club and there was my driver standing next to the car.
“He was crying as he didn’t know what had happened to me. He saw my dress, and wiped tears from his eyes as we went to my apartment.
“Has the attack ever bothered me? Yes. Not the physical stuff, as I was unconscious, I don’t remember a goddamn thing. Beating them up? Sheer joy. If I had a sharp instrument I would have done a lot more.” Angie believes the people she was with turned a blind eye. “They didn’t pay attention as they all hated the fact I was the one who got them employed and made this thing happen.”
She was certain of one thing – David must never know. “When an incident happened with my mother in Cyprus, she didn’t tell my father about it,” she says.
GIFT
“It’s why I didn’t tell David. He had the same mindset as Dad. David wasn’t in touch with his emotions when it bordered on intimacy and relationships.”
Earlier this year it emerged Bowie had pursued underage girls and slept with 14year- old fans Lori Mattix and Dana Gillespie. Asked if David would have been affected by the MeToo movement, Angie says: “Not at all. Lori and Dana went willingly to him. They thought he was God’s gift.”
But she insists she and Bowie played their part in the sexual emancipation we have today. “In the 70s we had a bit of good fortune where we could draw attention to the lack of respect and rights for people of a different sexual orientation,” she says. “We weren’t overwhelmingly successful but we got the ball
rolling. Has the MeToo movement worked? I’m not sure. They haven’t done very well with Donald Trump, have they?”
Bowie and Angie divorced in 1980. They had one child – Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones, 48, now a Baftawinning film director. Bowie took custody. Despite their estrangement, m Angie admits she is proud p of her boy.
“I am very pleased he is a director,” d she says. “I’ve seen his h film Moon about abandonment. d It nearly broke me. Whatever W has happened, I love l him.”
Angie was left out of Bowie’s B $100million will, but has h no regrets. She’s become a successful writer, setting up Angie Bowie Productions and WHAMCO publishing. She lives with her partner of 20 years Michael Gassett in Tucson, Arizona.
Her latest books include Fancy Footwork: A Poetry Collection with illustrations by Rick Hunt, Pop Sex, as well as kids’ picture book Cat-Astrophe.
She was in the Celebrity Big Brother house when her ex-husband died of cancer in 2016 aged 69 – and broke down in tears in front of millions.
Now Angie believes Bowie got the last laugh on her. She says: “I could see David standing there going, ‘ Thought you would do the show and get your new car with no trouble? Guess what, baby? I stole your thunder’.
“No matter what happens, when you know somebody well there is a part of you that remembers the good times and the sense of humour.
“To me, he was just sitting there, laughing at me, going, ‘Gotcha’.”
I could see David standing there going, ‘Guess what baby? – I stole your thunder’ ANGIE ON WHAT SHE THOUGHT AS SHE HEARD OF DAVID’S DEATH ON TV SHOW
Angie’s books Lipstick Legends, Pop Sex, Fancy Footwork and Cat-Astrophe are available on Amazon