'I lied to get into this country': David Bowie's wife Iman reveals she was under 18 when she came to the US from Kenya to model

She's found international success, but Iman took a risk when she first kicked off her modelling career in the United States.  

The 59-year-old supermodel revealed that she broke the law and fibbed about her age in order to leave Kenya when she spoke to New York Magazine at an NYC screening of Desert Dancer on Tuesday.

'I was under 18, and to leave Kenya to come to the United States, to get a passport, you had to be 18,' the wife of David Bowie said. 'So I lied and said I was 19 to get the passport.'


The Vogue model further explained, 'I had to have permission from my parents, and my parents would never have let me come.'

At the time, Iman was studying at Nairobi University and figured her parents, a diplomat and a gynecologist, wouldn't realize that she had left the country.
But her parents found out in no time.





'You know how they found out? I was in Newsweek a week later,' the 5 feet 9 Somalian model revealed.

'It's the only magazine my father reads, and the next thing, he's reading, and there's a picture of me in New York, [saying,] "She's the hottest model now.''

'I broke the law!' Iman said. 'But nobody can touch me now, I'm 60 years old, it's too late. The time has passed.'

Iman was discovered in Nairobi by a well-connected photographer and Africophile, Peter Beard, who photographed her and sent the images to Wilhelmina modelling agency.

She was then invited to New York by Wilhelmina, asking her to become a model in the United States.

At the time, the character Beard painted of Iman to the agency was quite different than reality.

'He hypes it that I'm six feet tall; I'm barely five feet nine inches,' Iman previously told Vanity Fair.

'He claims I didn't speak a word of English; I spoke English, Italian, and Arabic, as well as Somali.

'He says he found me with goats and sheep—that I was some kind of shepherdess in the jungle! I never saw a jungle in my life...

'But Peter lives in a fantasy world. He loves the idea of being my Svengali.'

Nevertheless, Iman found meteoric success, modelling for the likes of Valentino Garavani, Donna Karan, and Yves Saint Laurent.

However, she retired from modelling in 1989 and is focused on the successful cosmetics line she started in 1994, Iman Cosmetics.

'At the end of the day, my legacy will not be modeling, but my cosmetics line,' she told The New York Times in 2010.

Iman will celebrate her 23rd wedding anniversary to English singer and record producer David Bowie on April 24.

They have a daughter, Alexandria Zahra Jones, 14.

Iman has another daughter, Zulekha Haywood, 36, from her previous marriage to former pro basketball player, Spencer Haywood, 65.

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