Iggy Pop's 3rd Wife Nina Alu Once Thought She Would Not Be Able to Live with the Star

May 2024 · 5 minute read

Iggy Pop and Nina Alu . | Source: Getty Images

Former air stewardess Nina Alu is punk rocker Iggy Pop's third wife, and when he proposed, she was afraid to accept because of his checkered relationship history.

Iconic punk rocker Iggy Pop is not the kind of man any mother would want her daughter to bring home. The original wild child of the seventies music scene, Pop was famous for his eccentric and bizarre behavior and his relationships with famous beauties.

Iggy Pop's wife, Nina Alu, is the first to admit that the idea of living with the Godfather of Punk is daunting. Alu is Pop's third wife, and despite her misgivings, they have been together for over twenty happy years.

Iggy Pop of Iggy & the Stooges at the 25th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in 2010 in New York City. | Source: Getty Images

Iggy Pop was born James Newell Osterberg Jr. on April 21, 1947, in Muskegon, Michigan, the son of a high school teacher and a baseball coach. No one imagined young James would become one of his era's most innovative and controversial musicians.

Fans of Iggy Pop know all about the music and the wild times, but they may not know his private life, three marriages, and the women he loved and left behind. Now in his seventies, Pop has settled into his longest relationship with the beautiful Nina Alu, 23 years his junior.

The 70s were Pop's wildest, most out-of-control years, and it was then that he allegedly became embroiled in a relationship with an underaged girl, Sable Starr.

His first marriage at age twenty-one lasted a month and ended in an annulment; his second marriage, at thirty-seven, lasted fifteen years and ended shortly before he met the woman he calls the love of his life --Nina Alu.

Iggy Pop and Nina Alu at PETA's 30th Anniversary Gala and Humanitarian Awards in 2010 in Hollywood. | Source: Getty Images

Iggy Pop Loves to Twerk around His House with His Wife, Nina

When Nina Alu's mother learned that her daughter was dating the infamous Iggy Pop, she was understandably nervous; then, she was introduced to Jim Osterberg and changed her mind. Anu confessed:

"I love Iggy Pop, and I respect him, but I don't think I could live with him. But Jim, Jim is sweet and peaceful and romantic; when we're having dinner or making love, that's Jim."

Pop met Anu in 1999 when he was driving down the streets of Miami and spotted two beautiful women going into a pizza parlor. Fascinated by Anu, he sat in the restaurant next door so he could watch her, then invited her and her friend for a drive.

He quickly fell in love with the Irish-Nigerian stewardess and convinced her to take a chance on him. They moved in together, and finally, in 2008, they tied the knot. The man who invented crowd surfing doesn't tour without his wife and loves twerking with her around the house.

Iggy Pop and Suchi Asano at Diane Brill's birthday party in1986 in New York City. | Source: Getty Images

Iggy Pop Met Suchi Asano in Tokyo

Pop's second wife, Suchi Asano, was a Japanese beauty he met in Tokyo during a concert. The couple married in 1984 and divorced fourteen years later, but very little is known about either Asano or the marriage. Pop stated:

"She could charm me (...) but she could also respect my privacy and keep her mouth shut about our lives."

In the years since her divorce, Asano had never spoken about the marriage with Pop or the reasons for the divorce, and neither has he. He always refers to his second wife with a great deal of respect.

Sable Starr at Trax in New York City in 1977. | Source: Getty Images

Iggy Pop Was Hanging Out with the Underage Sable Starr

The 70s were Pop's wildest, most out-of-control years, and it was then that he allegedly became embroiled in a relationship with an underaged girl, Sable Starr, who would later be known as the Queen of Groupies.

At that time, long before the #MeToo movement, very young beautiful girls hung around musicians, and some, like Starr, Lori Mattix, and Bebe Buell, had relationships with rock stars and vied for their attention. The girls were known as the "baby groupies" because they were so young,

When she was allegedly involved with Pop, Sable was just 13. He wrote a song for her called "Look Away," and the lyrics run as:

“I slept with Sable when she was 13 / Her parents were too rich to do anything / She rocked her way around LA / ’Til a New York Doll carried her away.”

Pop has never confirmed the relationship, and Sable Starr passed away in 2009 from cancer when she was just 51, but the song does make one statement that can be confirmed: Starr ran away to New York with Johnny Thunders, the guitarist of the New York Dolls.

Iggy Pop and the Stooges in 1968 in Ann Arbor, Michigan at the signing of their contract with Electra Records. | Source: Getty Images

Wendy Weissberg Was a Virgin When She Married Iggy

Iggy Pop was starting on his path to stardom when he met Wendy Weissberg, a girl from a wealthy family fascinated by him and his outrageous, charismatic stage presence. For Pop, Weissberg was the epitome of the middle-class princess and a virgin, and he was besotted.

They married in 1968, but unfortunately, the mutual passion didn't last long, mainly because The Stooges disliked Weissberg and mocked her by calling her "the potato girl." Two weeks after the wedding, the marriage was over. Pop confessed:

"That relationship got in the way of my music. I was living with a gang of guys and I liked being dirty and stoned and curling up with my drum kit at night."

Weissberg's father filed for an annulment rather than a divorce to ensure Pop would not have a claim on the family's money. According to the annulment papers, the marriage was never consummated because Pop was a homosexual. Over the next thirty years, Pop would live a life of excess and success until he finally met the woman he revealed that made being happy easy, and that was Nina Anu.

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