Who Is Iggy Pop's Wife? All About Nina Alu

The Godfather of Punk and the former flight attendant have been together since 1999

Iggy Pop, the legendary “Godfather of Punk,” is renowned for his boundary-pushing music and electrifying stage presence.

Born James Newell Osterberg Jr. on April 21, 1947, in Muskegon, Mich., his pioneering career started with the formation of The Stooges in 1967. Over the past five decades, he’s continued to blaze a musical path with his solo hits like "Lust for Life" and "The Passenger" plus collaborations with David Bowie and Kate Pierson of the B-52’s.

In 2010, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall alongside The Stooges and in 2020, he received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award for his solo work. At his side for both of these milestones was his wife, Nina Alu.

The rock star met Alu, a flight attendant, in Miami in 1999 and they lived together for eight years before marrying. It was Pop’s third marriage and Alu’s first.

Here is everything to know about Nina Alu and her relationship with her famous husband, Iggy Pop.

She is a Howard University graduate

Alu studied broadcast journalism in the School of Communications at Howard University. She earned a bachelor of arts degree and graduated summa cum laude in 1996. Ultimately, she decided not to pursue a career in journalism and became a flight attendant instead. She was working with US Airways when she met Pop in 1999.

They met outside of a pizza shop in Miami

After Pop divorced his second wife, Suchi Asano, he moved from New York to Miami. One day in 1999, while driving around in his cherry-red 1968 Cadillac DeVille, he first saw Alu and a friend outside of a pizza parlor.

“Yeah, I was checking them out, thinking, ‘What the hell am I gonna do?' ” he told Rolling Stone in 2003. “I’m really not good with the pickups. I’m a klutz and don’t have a line of gab. I’m only good if they know who I am. So I’ll just sit and wait for somebody to say, ‘Aren’t you ...?’ and then go from there. But that wasn’t happening. So, anyway, I got back in my car, pulled up to where they were and said, ‘You girls want to go for a ride?’ And they did! So then I started dating Nina.”

Pop recounted one of their dates in an interview with The New Yorker in 2019, where he explained that during the outing, another one of his classic cars, an electric blue 1984 Ferrari, caught on fire. Pop said, “I had a date with a girl who became my wife, and I took her somewhere nice, and on the way home she said, ‘I think the car’s on fire!’ ”

Alu and Pop married in 2008

Alu and Pop moved in together in 2000 and were married in 2008. This was Pop’s third marriage. Previously, he was married to Wendy Weissberg briefly from 1968 to 1969 and Suchi Asano from 1984 to 1998.

Pop spoke about is marriage to Alu in a 2013 interview with the Sydney Morning Herald. “I found myself hitting 50 and realizing that I was lucky to meet her. Happiness with a woman doesn't need to be complicated. When you find the right one, it's easy,” he said.

Pop thanked Alu when he was inducted into the Rock Hall

In 2010, Pop was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside his band, The Stooges. He started his acceptance speech by raising his middle fingers at the audience and then declared who and what he believed was cool. This included his bandmates, other musical icons like the MC5 and his wife.

“Nina, my beautiful wife, you’re cool,” Pop said as the camera panned to a beaming Alu in the audience.

They like to dance around the house

In 2014, Blondie singer Debbie Harry commented that Pop has been twerking for most of his career. In an interview later that year, he shared that he and Alu enjoy dancing around the house.

“When something with a good beat comes on, I twerk around the house with my wife. Her father’s Nigerian and she can twerk. And I try. I like to shake that thing,” he said.

Their idea of an afterparty is wine and dessert at home

Pop has long been associated with his wild and raucous partying days and his wild antics both on and off the stage. These days, after a high-energy performance, Pop and Alu prefer to unwind at home, away from the chaos and noise that once defined his post-show celebrations.

In an interview with CNN, Pop said that the idea of an afterparty is more laid back and that he and Alu enjoy a nice bottle of Bordeaux and “lots of desserts” at home instead.

Alu and Pop have an Instagram famous cockatoo

Pop is father to one son, Eric Benson, from his relationship with Paulette Benson, though he and Alu do not have any children together. However, they are parents to a Moluccan cockatoo named Biggy Pop, an Instagram influencer with 118,000 followers. Biggy is often seen dancing on social media with Alu and Pop.

In an interview with Louder in 2023, Pop referred to the social media sensation as “the apple of his mother’s eye.”

Biggy was named “founding patron” of the Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital in Australia in 2020 after catastrophic bushfires decimated the bird population. When Biggy was announced as patron of the mobile wildlife hospital, the press release, per Pitchfork, included a quote from Pop about how he and Alu rescued the cockatoo.

“About 12 years ago a roadside vendor in a remote part of Florida stuffed Biggy, who was very young, into a tiny cage alongside some chickens, by the side of the road. He seemed to be in peril of a bad future. So we decided to take care of him, responsibly. And we have. He gets and gives a lot of love,” Pop said.

Alu manages Biggy’s Instagram account and has filmed most of the videos seen on the profile, which pop discussed in a 2019 GQ interview. “My duty is to play with the bird. I’m his playdate. His mom will come in, she doesn’t ask me, I never know when this is going to happen, she just starts filming it, that’s all. My role is to patiently and compliantly appear as his second banana.”

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