Yoko Ono Didn’t Want to Be Romantically Involved With a Married John Lennon

Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s relationship began as an affair. They clicked immediately when they met, and they were soon romantically involved . Ono said that while she loved Lennon, she hadn’t initially wanted their relationship to go this way. She shared why she thought an affair with him would be too much of a mess.

Yoko Ono said she thought a platonic relationship with John Lennon would be best

In 1966, Lennon walked into an art gallery and discovered Ono’s work. She was there at the time, and the two immediately felt a connection between them. They began an affair, even though Ono said she had not wanted this at first.

“I didn’t want to have any difficulty with a married man,” Ono said in the book All You Need Is Love: The Beatles In Their Own Words by Peter Brown and Steven Gaines, adding, “I was very much interested in my work. I had my child and my husband.”

Initially, she would have preferred that their relationship remain professional and platonic.

“Getting help [from John] on a work level was all right,” she said. “I probably had this feeling that I just wanted to keep it that way, not get sticky about it.”

Yoko Ono denied that she pursued John Lennon

Despite what Ono said, many people have blamed her for pursuing Lennon. She didn’t think Lennon was someone who would have allowed her to manipulate him.

“[They make John sound as if he was] sort of manipulated by some strong woman who just comes and grabs him. And the thing is, I don’t think he was like that at all,” she said. “A lot of girls were pursuing him, I’m sure. So I don’t think he would have gone for that. I’m sure he was used to a lot of women wanting him, you know, and my feeling was, Oh, I see he’s not coming on [to me], that’s very interesting, so I started saying, Oh, well, he’s probably as shy as I am. It’s interesting that I wasn’t doing anything about it.”

Ono resented rumors that claimed she swept in and stole Lennon from his wife. She said it wasn’t in her nature to behave that way.

“I’m a very shy person — a mixture of being shy and very proud and very old-fashioned maybe — I don’t think a woman should make a move, you know, whatever.”

She recalled the moment Cynthia Lennon discovered them

While Ono said she didn’t want to get involved with a married man, they eventually began an affair. Cynthia Lennon, his first wife, said she came home from vacation to discover the pair of them sitting in her kitchen. Ono claimed it didn’t actually happen that way.

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“Well, it wasn’t really like that,” she said. “Cynthia was in Greece — and she didn’t come back on the expected date. We checked and found out that everybody was telling her about [John and me]. She felt embarrassed to come back. She didn’t just suddenly come into the kitchen and found us like ‘What’s this?’ you know.”

Still, Ono said she understood the experience was painful for Cynthia and didn’t want to discount her memories of it.