Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson issues statement after death of estranged wife Paddy Bowden
Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson is mourning the death of his estranged wife, Paddy Bowden.
Bowden died Monday at their marital home in Chiswick, West London. The exes split in 2018 after 29 years of marriage and share three children.
This is a terrible tragedy which appears to be a tragic accident, Dickinson, 61, said in a statement to Yahoo Entertainment. “Our children Austin, Griffin and Kia and I are devastated. Out of respect for Paddy we won’t be making any further comment at this hugely difficult and painful time for our family.”
Austin, a musician like his father in the metal band As Lions, shared his own statement on Instagram. (Griffin is in the metalcore band SHVPES.”)
According to The Independent, the London Ambulance Service was called to the Chiswick home at 9:42 a.m to tend to someone who was unwell.
“We sent two ambulance crews to the scene – the first one arriving within two minutes,” a spokesperson said. “Sadly, the patient had already died.”
Dickinson and Bowden, who was his second wife, split in 2018 after nearly three decades together. He has since been linked to fitness instructor Leana Dolci, whom he reportedly lives with in Paris.
Dickinson joined Iron Maiden in 1981 and apart from a hiatus in the ‘90s has been with the group since. (He is also a solo artist.) Iron Maiden recently announced that they won’t have any shows until June 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In 2015, he battled tongue cancer and wrote about it in his 2017 autobiography, What Does This Button Do?. In that memoir, he purposely didn’t delve into his family life.
“I think if you throw marriages and things like that in, you automatically have to throw in divorces and all the rest of it,” he told Rolling Stone. “It’s part of your life, but not part of your life that’s any relevance to other people. I think you open a big can of worms there, which I don’t see as any point in doing. The point of the book is to tell some great stories.”
