Iman Tells Hoda Kotb That She Hopes See Husband David Bowie Again

Iman opened up about her enduring love for David Bowie, saying she thinks about him “every day and every minute.”

For the supermodel, 67, Bowie is still very much a presence in her life.

“I think of him all the time,” she told Hoda Kotb on an episode of TODAY Show Radio at SiriusXM on Oct. 5. “People say ‘your late husband’ and I say, ‘Don’t call my husband late. He’s not my late husband. He’s my husband, and he’ll always be.’”

Iman grew emotional as she shared one of her deepest wishes.

“If there is an afterlife, I’d like to see my husband again,” she said. “That’s the one I want.”

Iman also shared that while she is “always open to love,” she is not searching for romance.

“I just don’t know if I’m open to that kind of relationship. It’s only been six years, so I’m not open to it now,” she said.

When Hoda asked whether the six years since Bowie’s death had gone by in a blink, Iman said, “They feel like sometimes a blink and sometimes 100 years.”

Iman was married to Bowie from 1992 until 2016, when he died from liver cancer. The couple had one one daughter together, Alexandria Zahra Jones, 22. Bowie also had a son, Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones, 51, from his earlier marriage to Angela Bowie.

Reflecting on their 24 years of marriage, Iman said she and Bowie shared a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love.

“I think if you’re lucky, you’ll experience something like that, you know what I mean?” she said. “It’s luck, and I was lucky.”

Iman also opened up to Hoda about combating racism in the modeling industry throughout her career.

The Somali-American model recalled one incident early in her career when she booked a job with American Vogue in New York.

“There was a white model and I, and the makeup artist did her makeup,” she recalled. “He came to me and the first question he asked me was very perplexing to me, because first of all ... I was aware that he didn’t ask the other girl that question, ‘Did you bring your own foundation?’ Now, first of all, I had no idea what he was talking about. But I said, ‘No.’ And then he mixed some stuff and put it on my face and when I looked in the mirror, I looked gray.”

Iman said incidents like this compelled her to reshape the modeling industry. She said she began bringing her own makeup to modeling jobs and sharing her supplies with fellow models of color.

She also fought for equal pay for Black models, and has worked with Naomi Campbell and others to fight for more equal representation in the industry.

The supermodel said one of the biggest adjustments she made when launching her career was being seen as a "Black model" rather than just a model.

“I was watching something that was very foreign to me,” she said. "The first time I was described as a Black model — I never associated myself as a Black person. I come from a country 100% Black. We never called ourselves ‘We’re Black.’ We’re Somali. It’s very obvious we’re Black. And I couldn’t understand what does that mean.”

This article was originally published on TODAY.com