Bowie: ‘I’m gay and always have been’ | January 1972 | The Bowie Bible

Contents:

• WAS HE GAY, BISEXUAL OR BOWIE? Y
• BOY GEE REVEALS WHEN HE KNEW HE WAS GAY, SAYS DAVID BOWIE HELPED HIM FEEL HE WASN'T ALONE
• BOWIE: ‘I’M GAY AND ALWAYS HAVE BEEN’
• 1983. DAVID BOWIE CHANG HIS MD ABOUT BEG GAY.

WAS HE GAY, BISEXUAL OR BOWIE? Y

Bowie, 69, was not jt a pop idol but a the days sce his ath, lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr fans have shared how the rocker fluenced their liv and helped brg queer culture to the mastream the 1960s and 1970s. “Feelg those sentiments was important, pecially as a gay youth who was not out at the time.

BOY GEE REVEALS WHEN HE KNEW HE WAS GAY, SAYS DAVID BOWIE HELPED HIM FEEL HE WASN'T ALONE

“I’m gay, ” he said to the journalist Michael Watts 1972, “and always have been, even when I was David Jon, ” his name at years later, an article for Rollg Stone tled “Straight Time, ” Mr. Bowie, who married two women and had two children, would still face the qutn terviews years later: Was he gay or bisexual? ” In other words, he was not a mpaigner for gay rights, but Mr.

Lowr ntued, “but, pecially at the begng of his reer, he was regnizably ‘gay.

BOWIE: ‘I’M GAY AND ALWAYS HAVE BEEN’

’ It didn’t matter whether he was gay, straight or bisexual, he was a massive role mol. The 22 January 1972 issue of the Melody Maker rried a groundbreakg terview wh David Bowie, which the sger admted he was “gay, and always have been. “I’m gay, ” he says, “and always have been, even when I was David Jon.

We were all pretty broad-md on Melody Maker so the gayns didn’t put off him. But there you BowieMojo, July 2002Although Bowie was not yet a hoehold name, the story was picked up by the Eveng Standard newspaper, which republished the “I’m gay” quotatn. Bowie’s former manager Kenh Pt was not imprsed: “I wasn’t at all happy when the ‘I’m Gay terview appeared’, ” he said.

‘I’m gay, ’ he said, ‘and always have been, even when I was David Jon.

1983. DAVID BOWIE CHANG HIS MD ABOUT BEG GAY.

Well, laws on homosexualy had been reformed only five years prevly. He’s gay, he says.

A few months back, when he played Hampstedt’s Country Club, a small greasy club north London which has seen all sorts of excg ocsns, about half the gay populatn of the cy turned up to see him his massive floppy velvet hat, which he twirled around at the end of each number. Acrdg to Stuart Lyon, the club’s manager, a ltle gay brother sat right up close to the stage throughout the whole eveng, absolutely spellbound wh admiratn.

As happens, David don’t have much time for Gay Liberatn, however.