Iman posts loving tribute to late husband David Bowie as plans announced for his childhood home

Thursday 8 January marks what would have been David Bowie’s 79th birthday, and tributes have rolled in for the legend. The hitmaker died in 2016, aged 69, after an 18-month battle with cancer. His late wife Iman and his daughter Lexi have both shared online messages on the same day it has been announced that his childhood home will be opened up to the public. 

Iman took to Instagram to share a black-and-white snap of David, along with the words: “Jan 8th. Happy Heavenly Birthday. Your light burns so bright in all our hearts! We love and miss you #BowieForever.” Fans shared their well wishes in the comments section and many left love heart emojis to comfort Iman.

Iman and David met in 1990 after being set up on a blind date. David later admitted in an exclusive with us that he was already thinking up baby names after the couple’s first date. They went on to have a child called Lexi together.

Daughter Lexi Jones, 25, also paid tribute online to her late father, sharing a throwback snap on one of his former birthdays, where she stood next to him with a birthday cake. Lexi has been busy paving her own way in the music industry, with her album, Xandri, released in 2025.

David Bowie’s childhood home 

As the 10-year anniversary of David Bowie’s death approaches, it has been announced that his south-east London childhood home will be opened to the public as an ” immersive experience”.

The star lived at 4 Plaistow Grove in Bromley from age eight to 20 and he wrote the hit song, Space Oddity, there. The project will be run by the Heritage Of London Trust, and the plan is to first transform the home into how it looked when Bowie lived there and then host creative and skills workshops at the venue.

Geoffrey Marsh, co-curator of the Victoria And Albert Museum’s David Bowie Is exhibition, will be on hand to help with the vision. He said: “It was in this small house, particularly in his tiny bedroom, that Bowie evolved from an ordinary suburban schoolboy to the beginnings of an extraordinary international stardom.

© Getty Images

“As he said, ‘I spent so much time in my bedroom, it really was my entire world, I had books up there, my music up there, my record player, going from my world upstairs out on to the street, I had to pass through this no-man’s-land of the living room’.”