In 1976, David Bowie introduced a radical new persona tied to his recent album Station to Station. He had begun to show signs of the Thin White Duke as early as 1974, but wasn't formally introduced until a couple of years later. The persona was also influenced by the film The Man Who Fell To Earth, which Bowie starred in that same year. The Thin White Duke was new, a bit divisive, and, as Bowie described him later, "nasty." According to Bowie, this short-lived persona occurred during his "darkest days" of extravagant drug use. The Thin White Duke lasted only about a year before he was retired, but not before sparking some controversy.

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David Bowie allegedly based the essence of the Thin White Duke on stylistic elements from William S. Burroughs' book Naked Lunch. The persona was heavily steeped in contradiction, subconscious creation, and a "cut-up" style of storytelling, which were all prevalent in Naked Lunch.

Additional influences came from The Man Who Fell To Earth, the film starring Bowie in mid-1975. The main character, Thomas Jerome Newton, was an alien who landed on Earth, and Bowie used adopted parts of the character's look and mannerisms for the new persona. The Thin White Duke was aristocratic but also theatrical in a sort of cabaret style. He was gentlemanly in his trousers and waistcoat, but there were also darker parts of the persona that didn't mesh with what people knew about David Bowie at the time. The little he revealed of himself, at least.

Station to Station is often associated with the Thin White Duke persona. The album was written and recorded in a drug, hot pepper, and milk-addled haze, and David Bowie later had nearly no recollection of making it. He hardly ate or slept, and subsisted mostly on hard drugs. The album process began after he moved to Los Angeles to be in movies, but Bowie later described it as a cry for help. It's possible that the Thin White Duke was a cry for help as well.

In 1976, Bowie sat for a Playboy interview where, as the Thin White Duke, he spouted off pro-fascist sentiments. He stated that he "believe[d] very strongly in fascism," even calling Adolf Hitler "one of the first rock stars." However, when pressed about his answers and asked if he stood by them, Bowie replied, "Everything but the inflammatory remarks."

There were moments of lucidity during the Thin White Duke persona where it's possible David Bowie realized what he was saying. However, he was stuck in an endless cycle of drug use that would eventually lead him (and Iggy Pop) to leave Los Angeles and move to Europe. By early 1977, the Thin White Duke was retired, and David Bowie began the process of working through his issues on his Berlin Trilogy.