In 2024 and 2025, internet users shared a text they claimed was a letter the musician David Bowie wrote shortly before his 2016 death.
Identified in posts on social media platforms including X (archived) and Facebook (archived) as "David Bowie's Last Letter," the text described the process of recording "Blackstar," the final album Bowie released during his lifetime, which hit shelves on Jan. 8, 2016 — two days before the musician died, reportedly from liver cancer, on Jan. 10, 2016. Several lines from the letter appeared to reference the lyrics of "Lazarus," a single from that album.
(Facebook page Howtofeelgood.net)
The text read in full:
David Bowie's Last Letter
I will die… I know there are only a few months left until the end of my earthly journey…
What should I do? Despair, sink into depression, reject the idea of death, and pretend the illness doesn't exist?
Or should I decide to defeat death… I decide it with my soul because only the soul and the heart give me the inspiration to compose music, as I've done for 50 years…
I count the hours I have left, and as the doctors tell me, I can predict, within a certain margin, the date of my death. The release of my last work is scheduled for January 8, 2016, my 69th birthday.
I work day and night; I have the time to compose, perfect, perform, record in the studio, and make videos… I do it as quickly as possible because I don't want my face to show the mark of death, which mockingly is cutting down my body without me being able to defend myself…
But I challenge you, death… To hell with it if I don't challenge you!
I challenged and conquered the world of fans in the '70s with the pride of ambiguity… I loved men and women; I was a man, a woman, an alien, and finally, a celestial body.
What can you do, death, against my eternity, my genius, my madness, my creativity, my music that will live forever?
I am Lazarus, torn from the scars. I will die in the body, but I will live forever through my music.
I lived long enough to receive birthday wishes. I thought I wouldn't make it to see my album released… I survived January 8… And you, my dear killer, lost!
Just think, if you hadn't knocked on my door, I would have created 24 works; I would have managed to live to 100, and instead, thanks to you, I have 25!
You know… I will be free as a bird.
However, there was no concrete evidence that Bowie was the letter's author.
At the time of this writing, no sign of the letter appeared on any social media account officially associated with Bowie or his estate. We also found no coverage of the letter from reputable news outlets — something we would expect to find if the letter was genuine.
Google searches for distinctive terms from the letter, such as "I am Lazarus, torn from the scars," likewise returned no concrete proof the letter originated from Bowie.
In fact, the letter appeared to have first circulated online in the form of social media (archived) and discussion forum (archived) posts in January 2024 — eight years after Bowie died. Such delays between a figure's lifetime and the first securely datable instances of a quote attributed to that figure are a common red flag that the quote may not be authentic.
Also suspect was the letter's claim that "Blackstar" was Bowie's 25th work. Although the letter did not define exactly what "work" meant in this context, "Blackstar" was in fact Bowie's 26th solo studio album. (At the time of this writing, the Discography page on DavidBowie.com, the artist's official website, listed a total of 28 studio albums; two were not solo albums but instead were released by Tin Machine, the band Bowie fronted from 1988 to 1992.)
We've reached out to Bowie's estate for comment about the letter's authenticity, and will update this story if and when we hear back.
Snopes has previously investigated other claims about Bowie, including whether he once described the internet as "something exhilarating and terrifying."