John Lennon was undeniably a man of contradictions. Even though he wrote music that was anti-violence, he was often a violent man in his personal life. He had almost no relationship with his father, and sadly, this pattern repeated with his older son Julian, although he was quite close to his younger son, Sean. In addition, Lennon struggled with addiction, was investigated by the United States government, and even faced allegations of plagiarism. From the deaths of multiple family members who were close to him to the tragic shooting that ended his life, here's the troubling truth about John Lennon.
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00:00John Lennon's time in this world was far from blissful.
00:04In fact, his personal life was a nearly unending stream of chaos and disastrous events, some
00:09cast upon him by cruel fates, others caused by his own behavior.
00:14So let's dig deep into the dark underbelly of John Lennon's life.
00:18Lennon had a strained relationship with his father, Alfred, who separated from Lennon's
00:22mother, Julia, in 1944, four years after John was born.
00:27As a result, John has said that he never really knew his father and that he didn't
00:31see him much until he became famous, at which point Alfred mysteriously turned up again.
00:36But it doesn't sound like the reunion went particularly well.
00:40As John explained in a 1966 interview,
00:43"...I saw him and spoke to him and decided I still didn't want to know him."
00:47In 1965, the Beatles were on top of the world, and a talent manager named Tony Cartwright
00:52discovered Alfred working at a pub.
00:55Cartwright shaped Alfred, who was a talented singer himself, into Fred Lennon and attempted
01:00to turn him into a recording artist.
01:02Unfortunately, his debut album didn't sit well with his son, who reportedly asked his
01:07manager Brian Epstein to do all that he could to stop it.
01:11Whether Epstein used his industry clout to do this or not, Alfred's singing days were
01:15soon over and his record never charted.
01:19John only ever saw his father one more time in 1970 when he grabbed him by the collar
01:23and screamed at him.
01:25Alfred died in 1975, and John eventually expressed regret that he didn't handle their
01:30last meeting better.
01:32The aptly named dairy farmer George Too-Good Smith was John Lennon's uncle through marriage,
01:37and indeed, he was too good for this world.
01:40For most of his childhood, Lennon lived with Smith and Mary Elizabeth Stanley, Smith's
01:44wife and Lennon's aunt.
01:46A father figure and a profound influence on the young Lennon, Smith was the one who taught
01:50the Beatle in the making to read, paint, and draw.
01:54He even bought him a musical instrument, a mouth organ.
01:58Unfortunately, the good times weren't meant to last.
02:01In 1955, the 52-year-old Smith collapsed at his home and died of a liver hemorrhage.
02:07Smith's good name hasn't been lost to history, and neither has his final resting place, as
02:11his grave was lovingly restored and unveiled in 2015 as part of Lennon's 75th birthday
02:17celebrations.
02:18Oddly enough, Smith's demise may have inspired a certain Beatles classic in a roundabout
02:23way.
02:24The churchyard that Smith was buried in also contained the grave of a maid named Eleanor
02:28Rigby.
02:29Both Lennon and Paul McCartney frequented the churchyard, and although McCartney insists
02:34that he made up the name and the character, some people speculate that he may have subconsciously
02:38picked up the name from the gravestone.
02:41One of the worst moments in Lennon's life happened on July 15th, 1958, when his mother,
02:46Julia, died in a freak accident.
02:49Although the future superstar lived with his aunt and uncle, mother and son were close.
02:54She was supportive of his musical endeavors, and even bought him his first guitar.
02:59So imagine the 17-year-old Lennon's shock when his mother left his aunt's house and
03:03was run over by an off-duty policeman when crossing a road on her way to the bus stop.
03:08She died instantly.
03:10The police officer was neither speeding nor drunk, despite allegations that he may have
03:14been.
03:15The tragic incident had a deeply traumatizing effect on Lennon.
03:18As for the officer, he eventually realized that the woman he hit was the mother of a
03:22very well-known person, and Lennon's fame ensured that he kept being reminded of the
03:27gruesome accident.
03:29He ultimately resigned and became a postman, only to discover that his route included the
03:34family home of Paul McCartney.
03:36Thus, he now had to haul hundreds of fan letters to the bandmate of the guy whose mother he
03:41killed.
03:42Some memories, it seems, are inescapable, no matter what.
03:45Lennon's son from his first marriage, Julian, clearly got some of his dad's artistic genes
03:50and world-improving tendencies.
03:53After all, he's a photographer, musician, documentary filmmaker, and philanthropist
03:57in his own right.
03:59However, he doesn't particularly appreciate his father's peacenik public image.
04:04In a 1998 interview with The Telegraph, he labeled his dad a hypocrite who preached about
04:09peace on Earth yet had no love for him or Julian's mother, Cynthia.
04:14From Julian's viewpoint, John was a fairly bad dad, an uncommunicative, adulterous head
04:19of a family that was eventually torn apart by divorce.
04:23However, Julian's animosity toward his father doesn't extend to the ex-Beatles' other family.
04:29He says he's on good terms with his half-brother, Sean Lennon, though Sean seems less enthused
04:33about keeping in touch than Julian does.
04:36He also has respect for Sean's mom, Yoko Ono, even if he doesn't always agree with her.
04:41There was a great deal of anger there, but there's also, you know, I've grown up a lot
04:44and there's been forgiveness since then."
04:47John Lennon liked his drugs, and one particular mind-altering substance affected him so much
04:52that it may have played a part in breaking up the Beatles.
04:55In 1969, he was addicted to heroin at the same time that many interpersonal gripes were
05:00already straining the Fab Four.
05:03This was an era when opioid addiction was poorly understood and the other Beatles watched
05:07in increasing alarm as Lennon and Yoko Ono openly partook of the drug which they recognized
05:13as something much more far out than they were willing to get.
05:16Lennon attributes the couple's heroin use to the pain they felt after Ono's miscarriage
05:20in 1968, though others have insinuated that he started using earlier than that.
05:25He's also claimed that heroin was his way to rebel against the other Beatles and their
05:29unwillingness to accept Ono as an equal.
05:33Regardless, Lennon's heroin use and the mood swings that accompanied it became a real problem
05:37after a nasty car accident in Scotland.
05:40By the time the band started recording their album Abbey Road, the three other Beatles
05:44had to be careful around Lennon because of his explosive rages.
05:48They were also uncharacteristically unwilling to challenge his insistence on keeping Ono
05:53on hand in the studio, as they could also see that their bandmate was in pain.
05:58The Beatles didn't last long after Abbey Road's release, though Ono and Lennon eventually quit
06:02heroin.
06:04Lennon might have been an esteemed artist and a well-known advocate for peace, but in
06:08his private life, he could be a violent man.
06:11Unfortunately, the violence very much extended to the women in his life, particularly in
06:16his youth.
06:17In a 1980 Playboy interview, he almost casually admitted that he had a history as a domestic
06:22abuser, having hit his ex-wife Cynthia.
06:25He said that the Sgt.
06:26Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band tracked Getting Better, which features lyrics about, quote,
06:30being cruel to my woman, beating her, and keeping her apart from the things that she
06:34loved was about himself.
06:36As he put it,
06:37"'I was a hitter.
06:38I couldn't express myself, and I hit.'"
06:40Lennon also expressed that he sincerely believed in love and peace, that he became a changed
06:45man, and that he was genuinely regretful of his past actions.
06:49Still, his history of domestic abuse is a serious dilemma for any socially conscious
06:53fan.
06:54What's more, some have wondered whether Lennon's violent tendencies also applied to his son
06:59Julian.
07:00Julian himself has neither confirmed nor denied these suspicions, though he has noted that
07:05he considers his father a hypocrite who never showed him and his mother the love and peace
07:09he was preaching to everyone else.
07:10I can say, think peace, think peace, but it's up to them what to do."
07:15In the summer of 1973, Lennon's marriage with Yoko Ono was in trouble.
07:19The couple were reeling from the commercial and critical disappointment of their album
07:23Some Time in New York City.
07:25Ono has said that the constant hate their union drew was slowly ruining their careers.
07:30She wanted a break from the idea that she broke up the Beatles, and she needed one from
07:34Lennon as well.
07:35Her solution was to set her husband up with a mistress.
07:39The couple had an assistant named May Pang, whom Ono trusted and who she knew Lennon was
07:43attracted to, so she proposed that the pair should start an affair.
07:47Unfortunately, Lennon's vision of the affair was rather overindulgent.
07:51He and Pang ran off to Los Angeles, where Lennon started giving in to his worst habits,
07:56which included drinking heavily and generally behaving like a rock star for almost two years
08:00before he and Ono decided to start anew in 1975.
08:04While Lennon completed no less than three albums during this period known as the Lost
08:09Weekend, the creative process was usually booze-filled and bizarre.
08:13It probably didn't help that one album, 1975's Rock & Roll, was produced by a very unpredictable
08:19Phil Spector, who often turned up in outlandish costumes and once even fired a gun into the
08:26ceiling.
08:27Lennon's most famous foils might have been his bandmate Paul McCartney and the concept
08:30of war.
08:31But he had two other adversaries who were arguably even more powerful, President Richard
08:36Nixon and the FBI.
08:38Around 1971, the Bureau took a dislike to the musician's political activism and started
08:43waging a five-year war against him.
08:45A federal file on Lennon was opened when he performed at a rally for John Sinclair of
08:50the White Panthers, who had recently been handed a 10-year jail sentence for selling
08:54two marijuana joints.
08:56Fortunately for Sinclair, he was soon released.
08:59But unfortunately for Lennon, his appearance at the rally put him in the FBI's bad books,
09:04which was a really bad place to be for someone who had recently moved to New York City.
09:09The American government harassed Lennon for years, collecting a 300-page file on him and
09:13trying to deport him on a semi-regular basis.
09:17According to the book Gimme Some Truth!
09:18The John Lennon FBI Files, President Nixon had a hand in this as he thought Lennon's
09:23political activism might endanger his re-election prospects.
09:27In the end, however, Lennon was able to weather the storm.
09:30When the Watergate scandal brought Nixon to his knees and forced him to resign in 1974,
09:36the pressure against Lennon eased up, and in 1976, he was finally able to secure a green
09:41card.
09:42I don't expect to be, you know, hassled unless I'm going to Hungary or something, or Czechoslovakia.
09:49Then I'd expect it.
09:50The Beatles probably aren't the first group you would suspect of plagiarism.
09:54Nevertheless, Lennon was once accused of getting a little too inspired by another song.
09:59The song of his that drew plagiarism accusations was Come Together, a standout track on Abbey
10:04Road and one of the Fab Four's most famous tunes.
10:07According to the lawsuit by music producer Morris Levy, Lennon plagiarized Come Together
10:12from Chuck Berry's 1956 song, You Can't Catch Me.
10:16While Lennon did admit that he drew inspiration from Berry's song, Levy claimed that Lennon
10:20had actually just slowed down You Can't Catch Me and presented the end result as his own.
10:26Allegedly, Lennon even stole some of the lyrics, as both songs contain a very similar line.
10:32Lennon's version goes,
10:33"'Here come ol' flattop, he come groovin' up slowly.'
10:36Meanwhile, Berry's went,
10:37"'Here come a flattop, he was movin' up with me.'"
10:41Lennon settled the suit out of court, and he spent the next few years feuding with Levy
10:44over specifics in the agreement.
10:47Levy took Lennon to court for failing to record one of the three songs that the settlement
10:51agreement required the Beatle to record for Levy, and Lennon later returned the favor
10:55when Levy released a bootleg album featuring Lennon's old recordings.
11:00It's impossible to talk about the many tragedies in John Lennon's life without mentioning how
11:04it all ended.
11:05He was tragically assassinated by a man named Mark David Chapman, who gunned down the 40-year-old
11:10musician in front of his own home on December 8, 1980.
11:14Weirdly, this wasn't the first time Lennon and Chapman's paths intertwined.
11:19On roughly 4.30 p.m. of that same day, a young fan approached Lennon on the street.
11:24The ex-Beatle signed the double fantasy album the fan was holding, and his friend snapped
11:27a few photos of the two together.
11:30That fan turned out to be Chapman, who would send five hollow-point bullets at the artist
11:34a little over six hours later while still holding the signed album.
11:38Chapman targeted Lennon simply because he was famous, and he admitted that his motivation
11:42was attention.
11:43He was inspired by the J.D. Salinger novel The Catcher in the Rye, and he went through
11:47with the deed despite the kindness that Lennon had showed him.
11:51Chapman has claimed since that he now regrets his crime.