David Bowie among UK stars who snubbed Olympic closing show

David Bowie had turned down the offer to perform at Sunday night’s Olympic Games closing ceremony with a performance of his hit ‘Heroes'.

He is one of several high-profile acts who passed up the chance to perform in front of a global TV audience of hundreds of millions at the finale of London 2012.

Organisers of the £15 million show had also attempted to persuade the Rolling Stones, Kate Bush and the Sex Pistols to appear in what was intended to be a history of British music.

According to industry sources, even the ‘Who’, who did close the Games with a medley ending with My Generation, had turned down the request to play twice, the Guardian reported.

But the decision by the band to announce a US tour in July swayed them, given the scale of the promotional opportunity.

The three-hour show that featured Elbow, Take That and another Spice Girls reunion was watched by an average of 23.2 million viewers, making it marginally more popular than the £27 million opening ceremony two weeks earlier.

Viewing peaked at 26.3 million on the night, although the event, which garnered a more mixed reception than Danny Boyle’s opening show, would have gained by its Sunday night slot, when people are more likely to be at home.

Bowie, who is now based in New York, has not toured since 2006, and it was always an ambitious request to try to persuade him to participate, even if Heroes was used as an unofficial anthem for Team Great Britain during the Games.

Although the 65-year-old closely monitors his own press coverage, he repeatedly turns down requests to perform or appear in public.

Fans of the singer had to make do with a segment in the middle of the “Symphony for British Music” in which Fashion was played against a catwalk sequence featuring supermodels Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell – one of several recorded sections, which suggested that hoped-for performers would not appear.