He refused to drink tea
When he was five, Bowie’s parents took him on a Thames boat trip, where he drank tea that had been stewing for seven years.
It was so awful that he hasn’t drank a cup of English tea since, though he is partial to Japanese green tea.
There's a spider named after him
The Heteropoda davidbowie is a bright orange huntsman spider from Malaysia, and was named in honour of the singer.
His eyes are the same colour
Contrary to popular believe, David Bowie’s eyes are the exact same shade of blue. They look different due to a permanently dilated pupil, which he acquired during his school days when his friend George Underwood punched him in the eye in a fight over a girl.
The moon landing made him famous
Very Bowie-esque. When Bowie was still starting out and not yet well known the BBC played ‘Space Oddity’ over its footage of the 1969 moon landing. The song went on to be Bowie’s first UK number 1 six years later.
He shares a birthday with Elvis
Bowie was born on the 8th January 1947, exactly 12 years after rock and roll legend Elvis Presley.
A lot of people say his name wrong
Bowie is meant to rhyme with ‘Joey’, not ‘Howie’
He rejected a CBE and knighthood
Bowie was offered a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 2000, but turned it down, because ‘didn’t know what it was for’.
He was also offered a knighthood in 2003, an honour he also rejected.
He released the first major downloadable single
David Bowie’s ‘Telling Lies’ was made available for download on his website in 1996, making it the first downloadable single from a major artist. It would have taken approximately 11 minutes to download using dial-up speed internet.
He was stalked by a 5’ 3” rabbit
While on his North American tour in 2004, Bowie was stalked by someone in a pink rabbit costume.
He seemed relatively unfased, saying “Hey, it’s rock n roll. It’s just a 5’ 3” bunny”. Things did get a bit harrowing later on, however, when Bowie got on a plane out of New York and the bunny – still in costume – was on board.
He set up his own internet service provider
David Bowie set up his own internet service provider (ISP) called BowieNet in 1998, which kept going up until 2012.
Signing onto BowieNet cost £10 a month, and each user was given a free 20MB to make their own homepage. User were also given loads of bonus Bowie content, such as exclusive web chats and bonus tracks.
As a teenager, he advocated long hair for men
A 17-year-old Bowie, then known as Davey Jones was on the BBC show Tonight in his capacity as the founder of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long Haired Men. “I think we all like long hair,” he said “I don’t see why other people should persecute us because of this.”
The pub where he launched his career is now a Zizzi restaurant
If you’re looking for a relatively low-effort way of paying homage, you can always go and order some italian food in the place where David Bowie launched his career.
The historical music venue The Three Tuns is now a branch of Italian restaurant chain Zizzi.
