David Bowie’s former hairdresser has opened up about her excruciating encounter with the mother of a teenage girl who the star took to his hotel room after a gig in the 1970s.
Suzi Ronson, 74, from Beckenham, first started working for the late singer after his mother Margaret became one of her clients at a local salon.
In her new book Me and Mr Jones: My Life with David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars, the stylist explains how she struck up a friendship with Bowie’s first wife Angie after she came into the salon wanting a perm in 1971.
An extract from the book, which has appeared in The Sunday Times, details how Suzi then travelled to the couple’s mansion Haddon Hall, where she was introduced to David, later that evening.
Although Angie changed her mind about the perm, Suzi ended up transforming David’s shoulder-length blonde hair into a red spiky style, which later appeared on the cover of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
Bowie being dressed by Angie Bowie and Suzi Ronson in 1973. Bowie performed for the last time as Ziggy Stardust at the Marquee club during a three night filming session of ‘The 1980 Floor Show’
Pictured: Suzi Ronson attending a private viewing of the V&A’s David Bowie exhibition in March 2013
After striking up a friendship with the couple, who were in an open marriage, Suzi was asked to assist Bowie and the band on tour in June 1972.
The following May, Suzi detailed how the band were performing in Birmingham when David spotted a ‘beautiful girl’ with ‘long blonde hair and dark eyes’ in the crowd.
Describing how her role also involved playing ‘tour madam’, Suzi organised for the fan to meet the band back at their hotel – like she claims to have done on several other occasions.
She wrote: ‘At the hotel, David slid an arm around her shoulder and I wandered off to join the crew ordering drinks. But soon a very pale roadie came to find me.’
The fan informed Suzi that the girl’s mother had arrived at reception and was refusing to leave without her daughter, who was only 16 years old.
Suzi then recalls rushing up to David’s hotel room and knocking on his door until he eventually told her to ‘f*** off’.
The hairdresser then informed David of the girl’s age and how her mother was ‘kicking up a hell of a fuss’.
Suzi described how the girl was ‘instantly deposited out of the door’ and David reassured her to attend another gig next year.
Pictured: David Bowie and Mick Ronson performing as Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars in 1972
Pictured: David Bowie seen signing autographs for adoring fans in 1973 while on stage as Ziggy Stardust
Suzi – who went on to marry Bowie’s band member Mick Ronson – then says she promised the girl tickets to any Bowie gig she wanted to calm her down.
‘It was a close call,’ she wrote. ‘I wondered if I should start asking for proof of age before they got on the bus.’
Elsewhere, Suzi claims that David picked out an ‘adorable-looking boy with an angelic face and long dark curly hair’ at a gig – but didn’t specify which one.
During a costume change, Suzi claims David told her to put the fan in the car when the show was over.
Once the performance ended, Suzi noted how David’s bandmates all sat in the front of the limo with the driver – leaving her in the backseat with the boy.
She wrote: ‘The boy beside me was shaking. I could feel it. David threw himself into the car and without a word launched himself at the boy.
‘I could see David pushing his tongue down the boy’s throat and his hand trying to open his trousers, all the while telling him what they’ll be doing back at the hotel. I was speechless.’
David Bowie and his first wife Angie pictured in January 1974. The couple divorced in 1974 and share one child
Suzi Ronson pictured with her late husband Mick Ronson, who was the guitarist of Mott the Hoople
When they arrived at the hotel, Suzi was told to take the boy up to David’s hotel room as he greeted fans.
Before taking him to the hotel room, Suzi says she asked the boy how he was feeling and he insisted he was ‘okay’.
She then details being handed a costume by David, who then ‘pulled the boy into the room’.
In June 2017, Suzi Ronson detailed her first meeting with David’s mother in The Mail on Sunday’s You Magazine.
She wrote: ‘Mrs Jones was my quarter-to-three shampoo and set on a Thursday afternoon. Once in a while she would have a trim, and every now and again a chocolate-kiss rinse. As I was doing her hair she would talk to me about her son David.
‘She would say, “He was such an artistic child,” and, “He’s a singer in a band.”
‘She was so proud of him. I would nod and smile and listen, as you do, but it wasn’t until she mentioned Space Oddity that my ears kind of pricked up.
I said, ‘Space Oddity I’ve heard that song on the radio.’ It was a hit. ‘Are we talking about David Bowie?’
Pictured: Undated photo of the late singer and actor David Bowie and his mother Margaret in London
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’m his mum.’
‘There was a buzz about David in Beckenham. He played the local pub, the Three Tuns – albeit folk music – but he’d had a top-five song in ‘Space Oddity’. It had been a while ago, though, so I thought he might have been a one-hit wonder.
‘The first time I actually saw David, he was walking down Beckenham High Street in a dress with this girl who had these skinny black trousers on. I met her – Mrs Jones brought her into the salon. It turned out it was Angie, David’s wife.
‘I liked her immediately. She was so cool and confident, and she looked great – she certainly didn’t shop in Beckenham. She talked to me a little bit about her life. She did lights for David’s shows, and they would hang out all night in London at the clubs and just have the best time. It all sounded so glamorous.’