The fact that John Lennon spent so many years singing about peace and love is kind of ironic, as his past shows that his life was actually pretty dark.
An admission in his own words
Lennon admitted in a 1980 Playboy interview to something extremely horrible. He spoke about the line in the song ‘Getting Better’ about being cruel to a woman, and said it was actually based on his own behavior.
Lennon openly confessed to hitting women and men when he was younger. Yes, really. The singer-songwriter claimed it was because he was unable to express himself properly at the time. But most people would agree that it’s not much of a justification.
A night that got out of control
It’s no secret that the ‘Lost Weekend’ years were pretty wild for Lennon, and there was one night at the Troubadour in Los Angeles where things got especially crazy. Lennon went with Harry Nilsson to see the Smothers Brothers in March 1974. The pair drank heavily.
They then started heckling the act, and it got to the point where security actually had to throw them out. You read that right, John Lennon, singer of songs about peace, was thrown out for being drunk and disorderly. How ironic.
Jealousy turned physical
It’s hard to forget Cynthia Lennon’s account of John’s jealousy towards her. One time, she danced with Stuart Sutcliffe, who was one of John’s close friends and an early member of the Beatles. This was before they were famous. John saw them dancing but said nothing at the time.
The very next day, however, he confronted Cynthia and allegedly hit her so hard across the face that she struck the pipes behind her. The pair then split up for about three months. Eventually, though, he did apologize, and they got back together, but it’s clear that John was a man who couldn’t control his anger.
Drugs she didn’t want
By the mid-1960s, John engaged in heavy substance use, including LSD. Cynthia didn’t want anything to do with it. She later said that her first experience with the substance was during a dinner party when a man named John Riley slipped it into her drink. The entire thing scared her so much that she swore off ever trying the drug again.
But it seems that John didn’t care. He allegedly kept pushing her to take it again, even though he knew that it made her feel ill and that she really didn’t want to do it. He repeatedly pressured her into taking the substance.
A marriage full of other women
That wasn’t even the only issue during John’s marriage to Cynthia. She said that he had been repeatedly unfaithful during their marriage, and during a flight home from India, he laid out all of his affairs.
He reportedly told her the long list of women he’d been involved with while the two of them had been together. It was around this time that John’s relationship with Yoko Ono began developing. Cynthia returned home from a separate trip to find the pair together, leading to their marriage ending.
Years missing from Julian’s childhood
John’s first son, Julian Lennon, was only five years old when his father’s relationship with Cynthia fell apart. But rather than being a caring father, Julian said that John became very distant with him after that. He apparently didn’t speak to Julian at all between 1971 and 1974.
Julian only received birthday and Christmas presents sent through John’s London office, but without any kind of handwritten note. Paul McCartney did continue to visit Cynthia and Julian, though. He wrote ‘Hey Jude’ after one of those trips. Julian did eventually reconnect with his father, but it was after John had neglected his son for many years.
An ugly part of the stage act
For a man who sang about peace and love, John Lennon could be surprisingly cruel. There’s actual footage of one of his nastiest moments. He would sometimes mock people with disabilities during early Beatles performances, including twisting his hands and feet to do so.
The whole thing was treated like comedy at the time. But it wasn’t exactly a one-off issue, as it became a regular part of his stage behavior, and it was very clear what he was doing. There’s no way he wasn’t trying to poke fun at disabled individuals.
The autograph from his final afternoon
One of the darkest facts about John involves his death. He was leaving the Dakota in New York on December 8, 1980, when a fan asked him to sign a copy of Double Fantasy. So John did it. A local photographer, Paul Goresh, took a picture of the whole thing, and it seemed like a normal fan meeting.
But the fan in question was Mark David Chapman. Lennon and Yoko returned to the Dakota around four hours later, and Chapman was waiting outside. He shot Lennon four times. Lennon was pronounced dead an hour later.
A frightening final meeting
It kind of makes sense that Lennon had such a bad relationship with his son because he had a terrible one with his dad. John met his father, Freddie, for the last time in 1970 at Tittenhurst Park. It wasn’t a happy reunion. Freddie would go on to say that Lennon became very angry with him after he learned Freddie might publish material about him.
John supposedly made all kinds of threats about Freddie, including saying that he’d have Freddie killed and dumped at sea. Ouch. Another alleged threat involved John saying that he’d put his father in a crate and drop him into the ocean. It’s not what you’d expect from the man who wrote ‘Imagine.’
The knife at the party
This wasn’t the only time that John was violent, though. One political discussion during a party in New York became very heated, and producer Jack Douglas spoke about it. He said that the guests aggressively talked about attacking police while a drunk Lennon listened along.
Lennon decided to settle things for himself. He went to the kitchen and returned with a large kitchen knife, threatening the people who had been talking about violence. To nobody’s surprise, it changed the mood of the whole event very quickly. Douglas and Lennon left shortly after.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
11 famous people who did terrible things, but people overlooked them
Some of history’s most admired names had disturbing sides that many people either ignored or chose not to talk about.
11 famous people who did terrible things, but people overlooked them
