Blondie star Debbie Harry’s perfect response to frisky David Bowie’s crude proposition
dailymail.co.uk
By RUTH WALKER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM – 29th June 2024
Two years before Blondie became global superstars, with the release of the album Parallel Lines and the number 1 Billboard hit Heart of Glass, singer and frontwoman Debbie Harry was propositioned by one of the biggest rock idols of all time – and cheekily turned him down.
In his new memoir, Under a Rock, the band’s founding member Chris Stein – who was in a romantic relationship with Harry for 16 years during the height of their fame – reveals the encounter, which happened when the band was the opening act for Iggy Pop’s 1977 US tour.
Amazingly, writes Stein, Iggy’s band featured David Bowie on keyboards, even though he was already a massive star in his own right.
‘Our minds were blown,’ he says.
‘Bowie would position himself off to the side on stage right. He was being quite generous in this situation, acting as a sideman because he loved Iggy. Everybody knew he was there but he wanted Iggy to be the star. It was pretty inspirational.
‘One day Debbie told me that David had been alone with her and asked, “Can I f*ck you?”’
Stein was Harry’s lover at the time, but doesn’t seem to have been offended – particularly when she revealed her flirtatious reply: ‘I don’t know, can you?’
He writes: ‘That really happened; I guess he figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.
‘It didn’t affect Debbie’s opinion of him; she, of course, still thought highly of him.
‘Iggy hit on her too but she was gracious about it; she gave them both rainchecks, as it were.’
Harry and Stein met in a bar in New York in 1973 and soon became lovers as well as bandmates.
Their hits together included Call Me, which featured on the soundtrack for the Richard Gere movie American Gigolo, The Tide is High, and Rapture.
The band broke up unexpectedly when Stein was diagnosed with the life-threatening genetic disease pemphigus vulgaris, and Harry put her career on hold, spending four years nursing him back to health.
Their romance eventually fizzled out in the late 1980s, but they have remained close friends and musical collaborators – she has written the foreword to his memoir.
In her own 2019 autobiography, Face It, she described how Bowie exposed himself to her during a cocaine frenzy in New York.
She wrote: ‘After they did the blow, David pulled out his c**k — as if I were the official c**k checker or something. Since I was in an all-male band, maybe they figured I really was the c**k-check lady.
‘David’s size was notorious, and he loved to pull it out with both men and women. It was so funny, adorable and sexy.
She said that, far from being offended, she was amused. ‘It was very funny. I didn’t touch it. But I did think, well – very nice.
‘I guess I was sort of flattered, you know? He’s one of the great men that I admire in the music world, clearly a genius.’
In another incident, Bowie is said to have serenaded Tina Turner with a version of her hit ‘Proud Mary’ while stark naked – except for one of her wigs.
Stein has been married to the actress Barbara Sicuranza for 26 years, and the couple had two daughters together, Valentina and Akira. Tragically, Akira died of a drug overdose last year, aged just 19.
He pays tribute to her in the book, writing: ‘The family was crushed. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever dealt with, and am dealing with.
‘There’s a tendency to present tales of personal addiction as colorful “war stories”, art produced by pain and being hooked. I know I glamorized the addictions of artists I looked up to.
‘I thought that I presented my own drug experiences in a negative light to our kids, but I’m wracked with guilt that any discussions might have been misconstrued.
‘I miss her terribly. We miss her terribly.’
Under a Rock by Chris Stein is published by St Martin’s Press
