Before the age of 16, Lori Mattix claimed to have slept with David Bowie and started a relationship with Jimmy Page — and that was just the beginning.
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesLori Mattix, far right, with Led Zeppelin, and fellow baby groupie Sable Starr, far left.
In the 1970s, Los Angeles was full of rock ‘n’ roll groupies — and wannabe groupies. Many people fantasized about leaving home, following rockstars from city to city, and getting even the faintest glimpse into their lavish lifestyles. Not everyone could handle it, but those who could become almost as famous as the stars themselves. Take Lori Mattix.
Pretty, adventurous, and into all things rock ‘n’ roll, Mattix became one of the most famous groupies of the 1970s. She purportedly had sexual relationships with David Bowie and Mick Jagger, and dated Jimmy Page for two years.
The only problem? Lori Mattix became a groupie when she was just 14.
Looking back on her life now, Lori Mattix maintains that her sexual relationships with rock stars were all consensual. But she acknowledges that she was just a “child” during some of her most infamous trysts.
Becoming One Of Rock’s Most Famous ‘Baby Groupies’
Lori Maddox/FacebookAn undated photo of Lori Mattix at a young age.
Lori Mattix (sometimes spelled as Lori Maddox) was born on Nov. 29, 1958 in Los Angeles, California. She had just entered her teens when the American rock ‘n’ roll scene began to heat up, and quickly took advantage of living in L.A., an epicenter for some of the most famous rockstars.
When she was 14 years old, Mattix met Sable Starr, who became known as the “queen of the groupie scene.” Starr, also underage at the time, pulled Mattix into her world of after-hours parties on the Sunset Strip.
The two girls became regulars at the Rainbow Bar & Grill, Rodney’s English Disco, the Continental Hyatt House AKA the “Riot House”, and the Whisky A Go Go. Known as “baby groupies,” they soon fell in with a rock ‘n’ roll crowd.
Then, Mattix met David Bowie. She was 14; Bowie was in his mid-20s.
Michael Putland/Getty ImagesDavid Bowie in 1972, around the time that he and Lori Mattix met.
According to an interview Lori Mattix gave to Thrillist in 2015, she met Bowie at E Club — a nightclub that played host to rockstars and turned a blind eye to drug use and underage girls — during Bowie’s “Spiders From Mars” tour.
Bowie scared Mattix at first. She described him to Thrillist as having “hair the color of carrots, no eyebrows, and the whitest skin imaginable.” Though Bowie propositioned Mattix, the 14-year-old pretended she was with someone else to avoid going back to his hotel room with him.
“I was still a virgin and terrified,” Mattix recalled.
But some months later, David Bowie’s bodyguard called Mattix and told her that Bowie wanted to invite her out to dinner. Mattix invited Starr, thinking that Bowie would sleep with her instead. But once the three of them got back to his hotel room, Bowie invited Mattix into his bathroom, where he asked her to bathe him. Then, Mattix claims, she lost her virginity to Bowie — and later that night had her first threesome with Bowie and Starr.
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Sable Starr, left, with Lori Mattix and Dave Hill, the guitarist from Slade.
Despite her young age — and despite the fact that she was allegedly woken up by Bowie’s wife pounding on the hotel door — Lori Mattix maintains that her sexual encounter with the rockstar was a positive one for her.
“I was an innocent girl, but the way it happened was so beautiful. I remember him looking like God and having me over a table. Who wouldn’t want to lose their virginity to David Bowie. I saw David many times after that, for the next 10 years, and it was always great,” Mattix explained to Thrillist.
Following this experience, Lori Mattix dove head-first into the rock ‘n’ roll scene, and became one of its best known “baby groupies.”
Lori Mattix’s Romance With Jimmy Page
When she wasn’t partying with rockstars, Lori Mattix could have been mistaken for any other teenage girl. She still lived at home with her mother and went to high school. But her life revolved around and rock ‘n’ roll.
Soon, it revolved around one rockstar in particular: Jimmy Page.
Not too long after her tryst with Bowie, Lori Mattix got a phone call from Page, the founder and guitarist for Led Zeppelin. They talked briefly — Mattix initially thought it was a prank phone call — and then wound up crossing paths a couple of weeks later at the Hyatt House.
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesJimmy Page of Led Zeppelin with Lori Mattix.
“Are you Lori?” Page said. “I’m Jimmy. I told you I would be with you.”
Later that night, Mattix was at a nightclub called the Rainbow when Led Zeppelin’s manager approached her. He convinced her to come with him, put her in a limo, and sent her straight back to the Hyatt — and to Page.
“I was being kidnapped,” Mattix recalled to Thrillist. “I got taken into a room and there was Jimmy Page. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and held a cane. It was perfect. He mesmerized me. I fell in love instantly.”
Lori Mattix and Jimmy Page ultimately dated for two years, but their relationship was tumultuous — and constantly overshadowed by Mattix’s age. Still just 15 years old, Mattix couldn’t travel with the band and would instead wait for Page in his hotel room. That said, she maintains that they were in love and that Page was protective of her. He even asked Mattix’s mother permission to date her daughter — though Mattix suspects he did so because he was worried about getting sued over her age.
Public DomainJimmy Page in 1977. Because of her young age, Lori Mattix did not travel with Page and Led Zeppelin, but waited for him in his hotel room.
“[My mom] liked him,” Mattix recalled. “She used to be an agent and was savvy to show business. She knew that I was dating the biggest rock star in the world. She used to say, ‘My daughter is like Priscilla [Presley].'”
Though Lori Mattix’s relationship with Jimmy Page would eventually reach a disappointing end, her rock ‘n’ roll adventures would continue.
Lori Mattix’s Final Days As A ‘Baby Groupie’ — And How She Thinks Of Those Years Now
Lori Mattix / FacebookMattix with Iggy Pop and Sable Starr.
After two years, Lori Mattix’s romance with Jimmy Page came to a sudden end. One night after returning from a show, Mattix found him and Bebe Buell – a groupie of Steven Tyler and mother to his daughter, Liv Tyler – in bed.
“I didn’t know she would steal my man… I looked at him and said, ‘What did you do to me?’ I never trusted him again,” Mattix recalled. “He was like a god to me and instantly destroyed this whole image I had of him.”
After that heartbreaking moment, Lori Mattix’s attitude changed. No longer was she there for love — she was there for fun.
“After Jimmy, I grew up and got over it. I was still modeling. My life was still rock ‘n’ roll and rock stars. Of course there were other guys – and amazing situations,” she told Thrillist.
Before she turned 18, Lori Mattix would take shots with John Bonham, do drugs with Iggy Pop, have sex in a bathroom with Mick Jagger, and find herself in a bar fight between Paul McCartney and John Lennon.
Today, as a woman in her 60s with a fashion career in Los Angeles, Lori Mattix has a slightly different perspective on her “baby groupie” years. When asked, she remarked that she wouldn’t wish her lifestyle on just anyone.
“I don’t think underage girls should sleep with guys,” she stated, according to The Guardian. “I wouldn’t want this for anybody’s daughter. My perspective is changing as I get older and more cynical.”
lorimattix / Instagram
Lori Mattix in 2023.
But despite her foray into the groupie lifestyle of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll all well before she reached adulthood, Mattix has no regrets. In fact, she says, she never felt better than she did all those years.
“I feel like I was very present,” Lori Mattix said. “I saw the greatest music ever. I got to hang out with some of the most amazing, most beautiful, most charismatic men in the world. I went to concerts in limos with police escorts. Am I going to regret this? No.”
After reading about Lori Mattix, read about Cyntha Plaster Caster, a groupie who turned her rock stars into interesting pieces of artwork. Or, discover the tragic story of Nancy Spungen, the punk-rock groupie who was stabbed to death at the Chelsea Hotel — possibly by Sid Vicious.
