Woman arrested with David Bowie and Iggy Pop in 1976 breaks her 40-year silence

By The Strut on January 22, 2017

Four decades after David Bowie’s famous 1976 arrest with Iggy Pop for marijuana possession following a concert in Rochester, NY, a never before heard account has emerged. Chi Wah Soo was 20-years-old at the time and was arrested with Bowie and even got blamed for being the one who tipped off the cops about the drugs that night. Now 61-years-old, Mrs. Soo has spoken for the first time about how the night that produced the above mugshot went down. Filmmaker Matt Ehlers got to know Mrs. Soo after getting his haircut at her salon for a year and a half before she trusted him enough to tell her story for his forthcoming documentary Bowie Goes To Jail. From Rochester’s Democrat & Chronicle:

police acted on a tip that Bowie had cocaine, and secured the adjacent hotel room. Using stethoscopes to eavesdrop through the wall (yes, stethoscopes), police heard something unexpected. Bowie received a phone call saying his young son was very sick and his wife, Angela, could not be found. “I slowly watched a gentle meltdown of David Bowie,” Soo said.

While Bowie made frantic calls, she used a phonebook to identify the original call as a Florida area code. When Soo told Bowie, he instantly realized a couple of girls from Florida were the perpetrators of a cruel prank. Bowie’s entourage had marijuana but they didn’t have cocaine. Undercover police officer Deborah Kilborn said they only asked her where they could score some. Nevertheless, police had enough evidence to raid. Soo saw three faces peer into the room when Bowie cracked open the door. It slammed him in the face and knocked him backward.

“That was the start of the nightmare,” said Soo.

Watch Chi Wah Soo recount that night below: