Reveling in stardom

I have been listening to DAVID BOWIE's "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" as I drive around today.
It has been ages since I listened to this great collection of songs, and as I drove I thought the Bowie might be the rocker who has had the most FUN being a rock star.
Consider the changing of personas from album to album. Consider the dramatic retirement in 1973 and the just as dramatic return a short while later.
Consider the way he held the pop media in thrall, as well as fans.
Bowie kept himself in the headlines better than any contemporary.
In a Melody Maker concert review from July 1972, Ray Coleman describes Bowie as "obviously reveling in stardom, strutting from mic to mic, slaying us all with a deadly mixture of fragility and desperate intensity."
Bowie has said in interviews that he suffered during the "Ziggy" years, losing himself in his character more often than not.
Perhaps.
I think half of Bowie's fun was media manipulation -- "gay or straight?" they all asked, as if it mattered.
Nope. I can't take what Bowie says at face value. I think because his act has always seemed designed to increase his own "fun value."