The music legend released his final album just days before he passed away

David Bowie 'has been secretly cremated in America without friends or family present' after the star told loved ones he did not want a funeral.

The singer died of liver cancer on Sunday after spending 18 months fighting the disease after receiving his diagnosis.

It is understood the 69-year-old's body was cremated shortly after his death on Sunday 'without any fuss'.

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David Bowie, pictured left, with his daughter Lexi, centre, and wife Iman, right, told his family that he did not want to have a funeral and instead wanted to be remembered for the good times and his musical career

A number of memorial concerts have been announced for Bowie, pictured, who died in New York on Sunday

According to the Daily Mirror, the singer told friends that he only wanted to be remembered for the good times and his music.

He explained his wishes to his family and wife Iman, 60, about what should happen after he died.

One source said: 'In many respects you don’t need a memorial or service to remember David by... you have his music instead.

'He would have wanted to just disappear with no fuss, no big show, no fan-fare. This would totally be his style.

'His last album Blackstar was very much his goodbye to fans instead.'

Bowie released his last album Blackstar on January 8, his 69th birthday, and just a couple of days before his death.

David Bowie released this image along with his Blackstar album where he appears to laugh in the face of death

Despite his decision not to have a funeral, a number of memorial concerts are being held for Bowie, while next month's Brit Awards will be dedicated to the London-born singer.

It is understood the cremation cost between £480 and £630.

BOWIE'S GOODBYE TRIP TO LONDON Although Bowie lived in New York for more than 20 years before his death, he always retained affection for his British homeland. The star went on a final holiday to the UK around the time his cancer was diagnosed in 2014, taking his wife Iman and teenage daughter Lexi around his old London haunts. The family flew in to Luton Airport on a private jet and stayed at a luxury hotel in Knightsbridge, before visiting the homes in Brixton and Bromley where Bowie grew up. In an interview shortly after the trip, Iman described how she and Bowie visited popular tourist haunts such as the London Eye without being recognised by the public. Advertisement

He is believed to have undergone a 'direct cremation' which would have entailed his remains being collected and taken to the cremation without any ceremony.

The musician's wealth, estimated at up to £600million, is expected to go to Iman and his children Duncan, 44, and Alexandria, 15.

Bowie's private burial fits in with the way the musician kept his 18-month cancer battle secret from all but his closest friends and collaborators.

The star's obsessive guarding of his privacy was praised yesterday by Elton John, who said that Bowie had defied the spirit of 'in an age where everyone knows everything about everything'.

At a concert in Los Angeles, Mr John said: 'What I loved about him towards the end was his incredible privacy during what must have been 10 years of incredible bad luck battling with illnesses, heart attacks, cancer, whatever.

'He kept it private in an age where everyone knows everything about everything. He kept it to himself. He made two albums without anybody knowing he was making them.

'And that is the mystique of the man, because we know David Bowie the figure, the singer, the outrageous performer. But actually, we don't know anything about him.'

Bowie's haunting final music video, Lazarus, shows him confined to a hospital bed

Flowers and other gifts piled up at a mural celebrating Bowie near his birthplace in Brixton, South London

Blackstar, which has been described as a memorial for his fans, is likely to top the US music charts this weekend, the first time Bowie has ever had a number one album in the country where he lived for the last two decades of his life.

According to industry figures, some 2.5million people streamed songs from the album after it was released on Friday.

The album looks certain to hold on to the UK number one spot this Friday with just under 90,000 combined sales since its release last Friday on Bowie's 69th birthday.

And it could reach the apex of the US Billboard albums chart this Sunday, with sales of 130,000 expected this week as it rivals 25 by Adele, which has been number one for seven weeks.

Meanwhile figures from global streaming service Spotify show there was a jump of 2,822 per cent in Bowie songs played in the hours following the announcement that he had died from cancer.

The top five Bowie songs streamed on Spotify in the wake of his death were Heroes (up 3,630 per cent), Let's Dance (up 3,942 per cent), Blackstar (up 1,120 per cent), Lazarus (up 1,084 per cent) and Life On Mars (up 4,238 per cent)

David Bowie's final album Blackstar is expected to be the UK and US number one record this weekend

Bowie tracks also made up five of its UK Top Ten, and nine of the UK Top 20. Prior to news of his death, he had 4million monthly listeners on Spotify, which rose to 6.5million today.

Three retrospectives of work by Bowie - who lived his last years in New York but enjoyed more mainstream success in Britain - and three original albums have all broken into the UK Top 40.

Three days before his death, Bowie released a music video for the song Blackstar which has been widely interpreted as a premonition of his impending demise.

The clip shows him writhing around on a hospital bed with a bandage covering his eyes as he sings the haunting lyrics, 'Look up here, I'm in heaven'.

After his death he attracted tributes from a host of music stars, as well as politicians such as David Cameron and other public figures including the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Fans have set up impromptu shrines in Bowie's memory at a number of significant sites such as his childhood home in South London and the apartment building in New York where he lived more recently.

A spokesman for the Creative Agents Agency in New York who represented Mr Bowie said they had no comment on his cremation arrangements.

Star 'thought he had time to make another album' a week before his death, producer says

David Bowie thought he had more time and was planning to make another album after Blackstar, his producer has revealed.

Tony Visconti says his final conversation with his close friend, over FaceTime, was just a week before his sudden death – and suggested the rock legend had no idea how little time he had left.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Visconti said Bowie had known since November last year that his cancer was terminal – but was anxious to make one more album.

David Bowie (pictured right, in his last public appearance) thought he had more time and was planning to make another album after Blackstar, his producer Tony Visconti (left) has revealed

And in the final weeks of his life, the singer had written five new songs that he was itching to record.

‘At that late stage, he was planning the follow-up to Blackstar and I was thrilled and I thought, and he thought, that he’d have a few months at least,' Visconti told the magazine.

Visconti produced Bowie’s final album Blackstar, which was released on January 8 – the singer’s 69th birthday.

Visconti said he first learned the singer had cancer after he arrived at a Blackstar recording session in New York last year with no eyebrows.

David Bowie and his longtime friend and producer Tony Visconti, pictured performing in London in 1970

The pair had been working intermittently together since Space Oddity in 1969 and Visconti has produced Bowie albums including The Man Who Sold The World and The Next Day.

He said the singer told him of his illness in private but added that in mid-2015, it seemed Bowie was improving.

He went into remission and was ‘optimistic’ - but the cancer came back suddenly in November.

But Visconti added: ‘I don’t know exactly, but he must’ve taken ill very quickly after that phone call.’

Iggy Pop, pictured with Bowie and Lou Reed, also paid tribute to the last star after his death

Another of Bowie's closest collaborators, hellraising singer Iggy Pop, has also paid tribute to the iconic star, claiming that he could have face 'personal annihilation' without his friend's help.

Iggy, whose first two albums were both produced by Bowie, compared the singer to Professor Higgins from My Fair Lady, saying: 'He subsumed my personality, lyrically, on that first album.'

The former Stooges frontman told the New York Times: 'The friendship was basically that this guy salvaged me from certain professional and maybe personal annihilation - simple as that.

'He was more of a benefactor than a friend in a way most people think of friendship. He went a bit out of his way to bestow some good karma on me.'