Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

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Mojo Ultimate Collectors Edition FEBRUARY 2007 - by Peter Doggett

BOWIE WEDS IMAN

Forty-something rock star seeks retired fashion model...

He was a forty-three-year-old rock god who'd recently dumped his fiancée. She was a thirty-five-year-old single mother and internationally famous model who was also being pursued by Warren Beatty. On October 14, 1990, David Bowie and Iman Abdulmajid were sat next to each other at a private dinner party in New York. That night, so Bowie confessed later, they fell in love; and for the past sixteen years they have rarely been apart.

After a string of all-too-public liaisons during his 1970s marriage to Angie, Bowie became more secretive about his romantic life in the subsequent decade. He was inevitably linked with his movie co-stars in the press, and usually glimpsed in public with an attractive woman on his arm, but enduring romance eluded him.

In 1987, Bowie began an affair with a dancer on his Glass Spider tour, twenty-three-old Melissa Hurley, and the couple became engaged. By 1990, however, Bowie had realised that the partnership wasn't working. When he met Iman a few weeks later, he was free to pursue the relationship without complications.

Iman had recently quit her career on the catwalks to launch her own perfume company and work as an actress. But for the next eighteen months she and David concentrated on each other, travelling around Europe and - as Bowie admitted - learning "to evaluate what sharing one's life meant".

They were married in complete secrecy in Lausanne, Switzerland on April 24, 1992. Two months later, there was a more formal service at a church in Florence, attended by Brian Eno and a photographer from Hello! magazine. Bowie celebrated their marriage with his album Black Tie White Noise.

The couple now live in New York City with their daughter, Alexandria ('Lexi') Zahra Jones, born on August 15, 2000. The man who once sang "don't believe in modern love" has clearly changed his tune.