Jones was born at
Bromley Hospital in
Bromley,
London, on 30 May 1971, the first child of English singer-songwriter and musician
David Bowie (1947–2016) and his first wife,
Angela "Angie" Bowie (
née Barnett), an American model and actress. His maternal grandfather, George, was a
United States Army veteran and mining engineer who ran a mill for the
Cyprus Mines Corporation, while his maternal grandmother, Helena, was a naturalised
Canadian. His mother was born and raised in
Cyprus, and has
Polish ancestry. His birth prompted his father to write "
Kooks" for his 1971 album
Hunky Dory. Mostly raised by his father David and his Scottish nanny, Marion Skene, Jones spent time growing up in London, Berlin, and
Vevey in Switzerland. He attended the first and second grade at the
Commonwealth-American School in Lausanne. When his parents divorced in February 1980, his father was granted custody of eight-year-old Jones (who was then known as "Zowie Bowie" to rhyme with his father's stage name) and he visited his mother on school holidays until ending contact with her at age 13. At age 14, he enrolled in the Scottish co-educational boarding school
Gordonstoun. He reverted to his birth name around the age of 18. Jones is the half-brother of
Alexandria "Lexi" Jones (born 2000), the daughter of his father and his father's second wife, Iman. He is also the half-brother of Stacia Larranna Celeste Lipka (born 1980) from his mother's relationship with musician Andrew Lipka, better known as Drew Blood. He has a stepsister, Zulekha Haywood (born 1978), who is the daughter of Iman and former
NBA basketball player
Spencer Haywood, Iman's second husband. By 1995, Jones graduated with a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the
College of Wooster. He then pursued a PhD degree at
Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, but left before completion to attend
London Film School, where he then graduated in 2001. ==Career==