David Bailey enjoyed marriages to beautiful women including film star Catherine Deneuve and model Marie Helvin.
But the celebrated photographer’s son Sascha Bailey tells me he was so unhappy during his own marriage that he began the formal process to become a woman ‘as an escape from the trauma’.
Last year, I disclosed that Sascha, 29, an art curator, had ‘fled’ Tokyo after the collapse of his ten-year marriage to Japanese lawyer Mimi Nishikawa, who is a decade his senior.
As I disclosed last month, the now-estranged couple lived together in Tokyo until October 2022.
Now, he tells me: ‘I ended up going trans before I left Japan. Before I left, I lost it completely and I thought that I wanted to be female.
Sascha Bailey and Lucy Brown attend the VIP launch of Paper Moon in October 2023
Sascha Bailey and Mimi Nishikawa attend the Fendi Mania Collection Launch in October 2018
‘I am actually officially transgender, according to the Japanese government.’
Sascha — whose mother is Bailey’s fourth wife, Catherine Dyer — explains: ‘It was an escape from the trauma.
‘I thought I had a second personality called ‘Sue’ that was female. ‘She’ [Sue] protected me.’
Although he registered as transgender in Japan, he did not undergo any transitional medication or surgery. And he is no longer considering changing his gender.
‘I didn’t do anything, not even hormones,’ he confirms, adding: ‘But I was prescribed them, I still have the doctor’s notes and the [prescription] box.’
Sascha is now going out with Lucy Brown, who is a former media assistant at Canadian media platform Rebel News and later worked for far-Right activist Tommy Robinson. She has since disassociated herself from Robinson.
Lucy told me last year that Sascha, whom she befriended online before he left Japan, was ‘very lost’, seeming ‘almost shell-shocked’ and ‘almost fearful’ of Mimi upon his return.
Mimi did not respond to my request for comment.
