Simon Le Bon
Simon John Charles Le Bon (born 27 October 1958) is a British singer. He is best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the new wave band Duran Duran and its offshoot Arcadia. Le Bon has received three Ivor Novello Awards from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, including the award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music.
Simon Le Bon
Career[edit]
Before Duran Duran[edit]
For a time Le Bon worked as a theatre porter at Northwick Park Hospital Accident and Casualty, and also sang in a punk band called Dog Days at Harrow School of Art. He appeared in a few television advertisements and also in several theatre productions including Tom Brown's School Days in the West End of London.
Le Bon worked on a kibbutz—an Israeli collective community—in the Negev desert in Israel in 1978, and then returned to England to study drama at the University of Birmingham before meeting the fledgling band Duran Duran in 1980.[2]
Personal life[edit]
In the early 1980s, Le Bon was engaged to his then longtime girlfriend, model-turned-actress Claire Stansfield. After breaking up with her, he dated fashion model Yasmin Parvaneh. Seeing her face in a magazine, he phoned her modelling agency to track her down and they married on 27 December 1985. Yasmin suffered two miscarriages, but the couple went on to have three daughters, including Amber. He became a grandfather in 2018.
During Duran Duran's hiatus in 1985, Le Bon drew media attention when his maxi yacht, Drum, lost its keel and capsized during the Fastnet Race, just off Falmouth along the southern coast of Cornwall. Before being rescued, Le Bon and other crew members were trapped under the boat, inside the hull, for forty minutes. All of them were rescued by the Royal Navy, using a search and rescue (SAR) helicopter from 771 Naval Air Squadron based near Helston. The rescue earned the Rescue Diver, POACMN L Slater, a George Medal.[8] Despite the accident, Le Bon and Drum went on to participate in the 1985–1986 Whitbread Round the World Race, coming in third overall in elapsed time. Le Bon and his partners eventually sold Drum; the events surrounding Drum and the races were chronicled in a 1989 movie entitled Drum – The Journey of a Lifetime and the book One Watch at a Time[9] written by Drum's skipper, Skip Novak.
Twenty years after his accident, in 2005, Le Bon made public his desire to race again. During a touring break in August 2005, Le Bon again raced Drum in the Fastnet Race, borrowing the vessel from her owner (the late Scottish multi car garage owner Sir Arnold Clark) to participate, and raising funds for charity the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). Le Bon had to leave the race unfinished, as light winds were slowing Drum (and the other competitors), and would have delayed the boat's arrival at Plymouth, interfering with Le Bon's obligation to perform in Japan.[10] He appears as the narrator in a documentary film project called The Weekend Sailor which is about a Swan 65 sailing yacht called Sayula II that won the first Whitbread Round the World sailing race in 1973–1974.[11]
In 2009 Le Bon (who describes himself as a "concerned agnostic")[12] contributed an essay to the book The Atheist's Guide to Christmas, edited by Ariane Sherine. In 2014, he became a distinguished supporter of Humanists UK.[13]
Le Bon injured his vocal cords and was unable to finish his 2011 summer tour. He remarked, "I am trying to be philosophical."[14]
On 11 July 2018, Le Bon was accused by a therapist named Shereen Hariri of sexually assaulting her at the Wherehouse, a record store where she worked during a signing session on 10 April 1995.[15] He responded via the band's social media pages denying the allegation, saying in part, "I have always been one who can admit to my mistakes and apologize for my failings. But I cannot apologize for something I did not do."[16][17]
with Duran Duran
with Arcadia