Marianne Joan Elliott-Said (3 July 1957 – 25 April 2011), known by the stage name Poly Styrene, was an English musician, singer-songwriter, and frontwoman for the punk rock band X-Ray Spex.

Poly Styrene was born Marianne Joan Elliott-Said in 1957 in Bromley, Kent, and brought up in Brixton, London. Her mother, who raised her alone, was a Scottish-Irish legal secretary. Her father was a Somali-born dock worker, although Poly Styrene used to tell the press that he was a dispossessed Somali aristocrat.

As a teenager, Styrene was a hippie. When she was 15 she ran away from home with £3 in her pocket, and hitchhiked from one music festival to another, staying at hippie crash pads. Thinking of this as a challenge to survive, her adventure ended when she stepped on a rusty nail while bathing in a stream and had to be treated for sepsis.

Having been ‘an itinerant traveler, alternative fashion designer, and a failed pop-reggae singer’, she saw Sex Pistols perform at the Pier Pavilion in Hastings on her nineteenth birthday, 3 July 1976, and decided to form the punk band X-Ray Spex.

Who was Poly Styrene’s husband?

Poly Styrene was married to Ady Bell, in London, in 1981.

In 1983, Styrene was initiated into the Hare Krishna movement and recorded at their recording studios while living as a devotee at Bhaktivedanta Manor. She lived as a Hare Krishna convert in Hertfordshire and London from 1983 to 1988. Styrene was a vegetarian.

In 1995, Styrene’s solo work was put on hold when she suffered a fractured pelvis after being knocked down by a fire engine.

In March 2009, Styrene took part in the inaugural Instigate Debate night. The night’s theme was modern-day consumerism. Other current issues were also discussed.

She had a daughter, Celeste Bell-Dos Santos, and lived alone in St Leonards, East Sussex.
She died of metastatic breast cancer on 25 April 2011, at the age of 53.

Source: Ghanafuo.com

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