John Lennon’s “Lost Weekend” Found: May Pang on Love, a Recent Documentary, and Upcoming Exhibition

May Pang comes across as a bit more punk than your average Beatles fan. From under a bob of lilac hair, she speaks with that mischievous native Manhattanite inflection that makes every anecdote sound like an inside joke between old friends who’ve known each other all along.

But who has really known May Pang and her story? Until recently—upon watching the 2002 documentary The Lost Weekend: A Love Story in preparation for this interview—I, for one, had no idea about the 18th months of her life that ended up plastered across tabloids in the 1970s. And she is most definitely not your average Beatles fan.

Raised by Chinese immigrant parents in Spanish Harlem (where she describes herself as “a minority among minorities”) Pang escaped strife at home and strict Catholic schooling through rock & roll. At age 19, after dropping out of college and dabbling in modeling, she faked her way into a job at Apple Records as a receptionist in 1970.

This position evolved to encompass assisting John Lennon and Yoko Ono on the production of experimental films shot in New York, and eventually the famous couple hired Pang as a personal assistant. Pang even lent vocals to some recordings. Under the stress of faltering solo careers, a transatlantic move, and intimidation from the US government in retaliation for their anti-war activism, the Lennon/Ono marriage began to experience some turbulence. Fearing infidelity, Yoko Ono came up with a characteristically-unconventional “solution” to their problems: John Lennon would take May Pang as his wife-approved lover. He had obviously made his attraction to her clear, and according to Ono’s logic, Pang was a 22-year-old employee over whom she had control.

What didn’t go according to Ono’s plan: Lennon and Pang fell in love. In October of 1973, Pang accompanied Lennon to Los Angeles to promote his album Mind Games, and decided to stay with friends. What followed was an incredible 18 month adventure of star-studded parties, road trips, and unparalleled (if not uneven) creative output leading to Lennon’s comeback success “Whatever Gets You thru the Night.” All the while, Pang took photographs that would go on to grace album covers, capture pop culture history, or simply document what has to be one of the world’s most surreal domestic arrangements.

Now, Pang is bringing some of those photos to Fell’s Point’s Winkel Gallery for the exhibition The Lost Weekend – The Photography of May Pang. I caught up with the photographer/author/jewelry designer/and-all-around-badass-of-all-trades over Zoom to discuss the show, the documentary, and why she’s sharing her story with the world.

The only time I found it special was because it was John. I saw John as John, not “John Lennon the Beatle”

May Pang

Michael Anthony Farley: First off, I just watched your documentary, which blew my mind. What an insane life! I can’t believe that you got to witness and photograph so many great meetings of minds… Elton John and John Lennon! I mean, what a wild, wild ride…

May Pang: It’s funny you just said that. There’s a time for me where I’m thinking, did it really… did it really happen? because everybody’s talking about it and I’m going, well, I guess it did happen. But I took it as an everyday thing. Everybody else is like, look what happened to you! And I could just talk about it, because that’s where, for me it was just “everyday” for me. I didn’t look at it like oh my god! Now I do!

The only time I found it special was because it was John. I saw John as John, not “John Lennon the Beatle” because at that point I’d worked with him for years.

But when we met David Bowie! It wasn’t so much David Bowie, but the person who introduced us… I remember at the party, we were standing around and I happened to look down the hall and there’s this figure coming in, and I used to just grab John slightly and, and I put my head down and I’d whisper, “Man coming down the hall, David Bowie,” you know, I’d give him the whole rundown. And he goes “okay,” because he’s a star. He doesn’t always see the person I do.

And then he comes over to the person we were speaking to—this woman— and looks at us saying, “Hello Elizabeth. Are you leaving?” And she goes, “Oh, do you know May?” And Elizabeth is Elizabeth Taylor! Elizabeth Taylor introducing John and Elton and me to David Bowie. Wow. Now that was a good one!

Thank God you were taking photos the whole time…

It’s funny, because even though John would say, take whatever, he didn’t care. But at first in the early days, he said, “Let me see what you got.” And he would go, “Mm-hmm… I like your eye.” And he never cared. Because I have some, um, not so great photos of him hanging with the cats…. doing what cats do with their paws and sucking on his sweater. But he loved that. And that’s the other side of John that nobody gets to see.

It’s interesting you put it that way, because when I was looking at your photos earlier, I was like, wow, these are—I’m not sure how to phrase it—I don’t want to say, the sexiest photos of John Lennon I’ve ever seen? [Laughs]

And I’m glad you think so! I say this only because this is John, the way I saw him. Not the “standing there and posing for someone” for some magazine—this was our home life. So what you see and my gallery shows, you see John in the angle I saw him. These are the photos I cherish because I saw him differently than anybody else did. So when people come to the gallery, they go, I’ve never seen him look like this. Well, this is the way I saw him.

I love that. I was also curious: are you including any other photography from other periods of your life? Or is it entirely focused on those 18 months?

I think mostly it is the 18 months with just a couple of odd ones out. One would be my very first photo of John that I took back in 1970 when I first met him. And another one that was even before that would be George Harrison, my first photo of him too. So you get everybody in there.

We got all four of them in different spots, but mainly it’s the 18 months because he was in a different space. And people didn’t see him for a long time. And people have commented when they come to the gallery that they’ve never seen him smile. They’ve never seen him do things, you know? So it’s a little different.

I can’t believe that so much happened in the course of 18 months. That seems like such a small window of time! And yet there were multiple albums and three different cities and this incredible adventure…

I know! Everybody thought we lived in LA—we didn’t. Although a lot of adventures happened out in LA, we lived in New York. We flew back-and-forth all the time. You are right about the fact that we did so much in that small window. He did more work during that time than any time of his solo career. So when you think about it, I mean, we were just moving along [laughs], you know?

It just happened to keep going. And he was enjoying it… and we were. It was nonstop. And we spent time with [Lennon’s son from his first marriage] Julian, which was very important. And I got him in the show as well. So it’s nice to see father and son. And I’m glad that I could capture that, for them, for Julian, you know?

I’m happy it seems like you guys still have a really good relationship.

Was anything in that documentary that surprised you?

Oh, totally! So I should say: I went into this with almost no background on the story. I unfortunately was not around to witness these pop culture events happening in real time. But coming from a fine arts background… in art school and in the art world, I think people want to be a lot more sympathetic to Yoko Ono as this person who was unfairly depicted in the press. The Art World always wants to vindicate Yoko Ono… UHHHH, but then seeing her from your perspective!? I was like, wow, she comes across as really manipulative and not a particularly nice person. So she… was 17 years older than me. She understood a lot more.

You know, I don’t want to give away the ending [of the documentary] for people who haven’t seen it. But when I was doing this movie a lot of people who’ve seen it say, Oh my God, I thought I knew everything. I didn’t know everything at all.

I’m just glad that Julian loved it. He didn’t see the whole movie at first. His mother [Cynthia Lennon] and I were very, very close from all of this.

But people had the misconception that she [Yoko Ono] controlled everything: Whatever she said he did. It really wasn’t like that. And that’s the line in the press: Yoko sent us to LA. She didn’t know he even went to LA! John just happened to be talking to his lawyer, who at the time lived in LA. And he decided, “This evening, May and I will be on that plane with you.” I’m standing there going, What? We’re leaving somewhere? So it was my first time ever being in first class!

But I didn’t know we were leaving. So I had to run home, make the reservation, run home, get it together, come back, and then leave with everybody. We were in LA for a few days before we even told anyone we were there. But it’s one of those misconceptions that’s out there.

Did I read somewhere that you ran into Yoko Ono a few years ago at a hotel in Reykjavík? What was that like? Was it really weird?

Well not weird because I know her so well. But it was weird because of all places: Reykjavík!

I was doing a promotion thing with IcelandAir, where if you leave New York or whatever on your way to Europe, you have a chance to stay overnight in Iceland.

I do those all the time! It’s the best secret…

The best. Isn’t it? I love Iceland. It’s like the best secret… but now we’ll be letting it out to everyone!

But it was weird because I found out she was in town when I got off the plane, and sent her a note saying I was also in town, and she never responded. I only stayed overnight that one night. And the next morning I’m at the hotel restaurant having breakfast and my girlfriend comes over and sits down and says “I just asked her what I should have.”

I said, “What are you talking about?”

And she says, “Yoko. She’s over there”

“She’s here?!?”

And I look over and Yoko’s at the same hotel buffet, walking around deciding what she’s going to eat, with two assistants carrying her food around. So I went over, and I’m standing on the other side of this long table saying, “Yoko,” and she wouldn’t look up. You could hear a pin drop in that place—everyone was looking at us like one of us was about to jump across the table at the other!

And the third time I say her name she finally looks up. I mean, normally when you hear your name being called you look up?

To be fair, “Yoko Ono” is probably a very common name in Iceland…

So she looked at me and said, “It’s May.”

And I said, “I just wanted to come over and say hello and wish you all the best for whatever your project is here.”

And she said thank you and I just turned around and walked away. I mean, literally, you could hear the pin drop.

So I sat back down and started to eat and I could see out of the corner of my eye that she’s wandering around the table again… and I know her. She’s looking for me. She finally spots me and she’s standing at the doorway between the two dining rooms. And she’s standing there waving at me. I’m wondering is she really waving at me now? There’s no one else here!

And I wave back and she goes, “How are you?”

And now with a big smile I said, “I’m fine. Thank you.” And I just went back to eating, ’cause I didn’t wanna have to do this again… I call it the take two. Just so everyone who missed it the first time could see. And I wasn’t about to do that. I’m looking at my breakfast!

But I think seeing the story now, seeing the whole storyline, you could see the manipulation,

But I do wish her the best. I never wanna wish anybody ill for whatever may have happened. You know what, I have to move on. I can’t keep that. The only thing that we have in common now was the fact that we both cared about the same person. And that includes Cynthia. So three women in his life! But Cynthia and I were very, very close.

I was glad I was able to give Cynthia and John their closure. They never had closure until I came along. And I am glad that that happened for Julian’s sake, if nothing else, I know I was the youngest one in the room, but I felt like I was the oldest one.

John and I were like kids, even though we were 10 years apart. He never did have some experiences because he was a Beatle. You know? It’s like they didn’t get a chance to do anything. They were always taken around.

Well, it seems like in a lot of situations you took on this kind of caretaker position because you were the only person who was sober!

I think I am still to this day! I mean, I will take a drink. I’ll take a glass of wine. Maybe a bit of champagne or mimosa once in a blue moon. But definitely not like some people at the end of the night…

Well I think the world probably owes you a debt of gratitude for being the designated driver and not letting John Lennon drunk-drive home on an LA freeway…

Wherever we were living… No, I wouldn’t. I couldn’t believe I let him drive this one time—I think we were either on the 405 or the 101 in LA and I was like, gripping on the side of the door. I said, “just lemme know when you wanna pull over.”

But it was good fun. We just enjoyed each other’s company. We did things together. We were in New York and he said, “What do you think we should do today?”

I said, “You know what? You wanted to see New York.” I took him on a bus ride.

He looked at me and he goes, “We’re getting on a city bus?!”

I said, absolutely. You wanna see what I do? You wanna see what other people do? So we got on a bus where we lived at that point, uh, at my studio apartment. And I’m talking about a tiny little apartment—but he loved it because it was cozy. It wasn’t, you know, massive like [his apartment at] the Dakota.

And so we got up and we went on the bus on Lexington Avenue, went down. There was hardly anybody on the bus where we got on and as we kept going, people were getting on. Now it was getting crowded. And you hear start, you start hearing people going, is that John Lennon? Is that John? Is that John Lennon sitting there? And John would look at me and he goes, “It’s the nose.”

And then what’s really weird was at one point at a bus stop, these cars were there. Apparently there was a guy who was trying to get into his car, but he couldn’t because the bus was in front of it. And he was a photography teacher. And he realized, who’s looking out the window? He grabbed his camera and he took pictures. I’m in the shadows, you could actually see my hair flying out the window. And the next day he went to his class and he made copies to show everybody what picture he just took from the day before. Now, I did not have a clue that there were any photos of that. So this is years later, maybe in 2003 or 2004 I did a cable show.

You know, people still don’t know who I am, so that’s fine. And this guy happened to watch me, this one guy. And after I get off my interview, they came up and said “Somebody’s been calling, says they need to speak to you. They wanna give you something. Somebody who said something about a bus and you were on the bus.” And it turns out that this was one of the students from the photographer that took the photo! He told me the story. He was one of the students. Now he’s a regular photographer for the police department. Now, that was a needle in the haystack, isn’t it?

I was just thinking about your work and how there’s something very special about an analog photo—that it’s an object. You know, it has this “aura.” And there used to be something like a scarcity of images whereas today it’s an oversaturation. We’ll never see a digital photo of Taylor Swift or somebody and look at it with the same kind of sense of intimacy or preciousness like the analog photos and stories you have.

It definitely is. I can say there were a few times where the guardian angels that are out there put me in the right place at the right time. It’s not even like I was seeking it, I happen to be the one there to witness all these photographs. I mean, they were under my bed for the longest time. And I didn’t think anybody cared about these photos. I’d talk to publishers and nobody cared. So I put them under my bed and when people would come over, I’d show them and they’re like, oh my god, these photos.

But these were our home photos. So when people come to the gallery and they see it, they see like all through my eyes, how—like you said—you saw another side of John that you don’t see: very sexy, very, very handsome. I can’t tell you how many women have said, Ooh, he looks so cute in these.

I started laughing. But you know what, it’s because there’s a lot of care. We had a special feeling for each other. We went through this and so you’re seeing him in the way I saw him back then.

And he loved a couple of the photos that he wanted to use for the sleeve cover for a 45 of Imagine in the United Kingdom in ‘75. They were releasing Imagine as a single, three years after the release of the album. We weren’t even together at that point but he called and he said, “I’d like to use that photo.” I said, of course you can use that photo!

Can you imagine me telling him you can’t use it?!

And it’s his favorite photo. He’s wearing his Irish sweater and he liked the way he looked.

I’m very lucky because there’s John that took that with a 35. People kept asking me, oh, did you use an Instamatic camera? I said, no, it’s not an Instamatic as an actual 35. And then Julian asked me for a photo also that I had of him at that rough age of 10 or 11. And he used that for his latest, his last album, Jude.

How did you get into photography? Did you take classes?

Nothing. This was all my love for taking photographs. That’s it. And I’ve been very honored by so many photographers that have come by and that are professionals by trade. And they all look at the photos and said, you know, you have an eye for some of these photos, it’s amazing the framing… I have no idea! I just took from what I saw! So I’m very, very honored when a professional photographer likes my photos.

I mean, so many are just very intuitively beautiful images…

Really you, thank you!

Speaking of education, never have I ever related more to an artist’s biography than your story about wanting to escape from the nuns at Catholic school with rock and roll and the subway! I always pose this question to creatives—because there are so many, even John Waters! who went to Catholic school and totally rebelled—do you think Catholic school makes us all instinctually distrustful of authority? Dropping out of school, running away on adventures…

Well, yes, because as you know, my father’s an atheist, my mother’s a Buddhist. But my mother put me into the Catholic school because it was the school that had the best training, you know? And in retrospect I was very happy with that rebelliousness, rebelling the fact that I had to go to mass every Sunday… and you better have that envelope ready because the nuns count out that envelope and say, where were you? I don’t see the envelope! on Monday.

I remember these nuns. I went to co-ed to high school and then it was all, all girls. And they thought I was a little nuts. I always said, music saved me. The music saved my soul… it soothed me. People thought I was a little crazy because I love the Young Rascals. Because they were the big thing American-wise. I mean, The Beatles were up here. And even in my yearbook, I got these notes, good luck with The Rascals and the Beatles.

You know what? I started laughing because I was friendly with both of them. I was friendly with The Rascals. Because they lived near where I lived in the city. And I went to the concert and I got to be friends with them. And, um, of course who would’ve thought that about The Beatles? I mean, literally I remember being in grammar school and talking about The Beatles!

…And then you ended up being the person that took the photo of the final signature on the dissolution of the Beatles.

I know. And you know, John had to coax me into that. Come on, come on, do it. Because I was sitting there going, I was gonna go look for Julian. He’s sitting there with two lawyers and a stack of papers. And he was, come on man. Come take the photos.

I was telling a photographer, it was the toughest thing because I had no light. I didn’t have a light meter. I’m sitting there manually trying to make this work. And I remember just looking at my negatives at one point going, what is this? Because they were so light on my negative…Until I finally realized when I saw the glow of the paper, the white paper. And I went, ah, oh, now I know what this is. Yeah.

I mean, it is historic. I realized when I look back that it’s historic. It’s historic of John and Paul. George, my very first photo of him, that’s of him with Dr. Pepper. He was drinking Dr. Pepper. And so there was all these little first, and I never thought about it as historic until you put it into context with everything else. Now, you know, and you go, oh, I guess I’m the last one to take this photo…

I love the photo of John lifting up Tony King’s skirt in drag as the Queen of England!

That was the funniest thing. We actually have another one that was just more hysterical. We made that our 1974 Christmas card and we sent that out to everyone.

That’s so good. Earlier you mentioned how your friendship with Cynthia helped her and John with a sense of closure… I’m wondering if revisiting this project has helped you with a sense of closure for the tragedy? Or did it reopen any old wounds?

It didn’t reopen any wounds. It’s a certain closure, not a complete one, because John and I talked into 1980, which I don’t really talk about in the film. But we were still in touch. So I really had no real closure with him. We were trying to figure out how we were gonna see each other. A lot of people don’t realize that we still had a lot of care for each other, and he was still calling me. I just think for me this was for people to see what we had that nobody else saw.

I have to say a lot of friends or acquaintances saw the movie and the first thing after they saw the movie, they would say, I thought I knew your story. I didn’t realize I knew nothing about you. I had one acquaintance, a musician I’ve known for years. He goes, I literally thought you were only with John for a couple of weeks. And I’m looking at him like, you’ve known me all these years. And you really thought that?… I guess they bought the party line, hook, line and sinker, you know? Because there is a party line. That’s the party line that I wasn’t really a part of John’s life, that it really didn’t happen.

I’ve had more people say to me, I didn’t realize that it’s my voice that you hear on #9 Dream because in the official video you see Yoko’s face mouthing, but it’s my voice.

I wasn’t around for what I imagine would’ve been a lot of tabloid speculation, but I know the media doesn’t always treat women very fairly. I think it’s quite brave your documentary opens with an older interview, in which you’re confronted with some accusation. And you respond “I don’t want people to write my story” with such composure. Do you think you faced a hostile media landscape? Has that changed?

The media—it depends on who you’re talking about. If you’re talking about Geraldo Rivera, you know, he was very friendly with Yoko. So he was attacking me. Because that’s the way he is. That’s his, that was his type of, um, “journalism” as I use that word loosely. But on the whole, everybody was pretty nice to me because I knew a lot of the press people before I was with John. So I was very lucky. I didn’t have the problems that Yoko had. She would say, I’m Japanese and that’s the reason, but I didn’t get that. And I’m Chinese, you know! We’re Asian or whatever! I probably get more from the trolls online. They love to create something and you just have to ignore it.

Oh that’s really nice to hear. Because I know pop culture often wants to claim some sort of ownership or imagined kinship with larger-than-life male figures the public idolizes. And often that means attacking whatever women challenge that image. But again, I’m very struck by your composure in old interviews when navigating that world… I’m not sure if “composure” is even the word I’m looking for?

Maturity.

Yes! Maturity, for someone who… I mean, you started this wild period of your life when you were 19!

Absolutely. There’s no two ways about it. Listen, I enjoyed when I got the job, I was thrilled. All I wanted to do was work. You know, I was not looking “John Lennon’s girlfriend.” I couldn’t! I was so happy to be learning how to be in the studio. To me it was so important. That was something that I enjoyed. I truly enjoyed it, I truly loved to be thrust into that situation.

I start looking back now to imagine saying to John, stay over there. I don’t want you to even come near me. That’s not where I was going. But the fact that he pursued me, and that’s really where it started to pivot. It wasn’t about Yoko saying, “John, you should go.”

She opened the door. I was trying to slam it shut. But in the end, John took over and he said, “Whatever’s going on here, whatever she wants, I’m doing my own thing now.” And I said, I don’t know what this is, so why don’t you stay over there? But he wouldn’t stop. And that’s really how it began.

The misconception more makes Yoko look like the master manipulator. You know? That she could do that. Yeah. She opened the door. There’s no two ways about it. I was not interested. That’s the other thing.

But it wasn’t like, Oh, May knew exactly when things were gonna go back. She was the one. So when Yoko wanted John back, he came back.

That’s not how it happened. There was so much to it. She did everything possible to try and get him back. It took her over a year. Nobody realized it’s all this underlying current. And we were about to buy a house. We were about to see Paul and Linda. A lot of people asked me that question, do I think that John and Paul were ever gonna get back to [working together],I could tell you right now: yes. Oh, absolutely. He asked me the question point blank, “Do you think I should write with Paul again?” What? Yes!

I encouraged him. I wanted him to be with his friends. That’s why when you look at the timeframe that I’m with him, you could see that happen. Like you said, you couldn’t believe all that, all that compressed into that small timeframe. And then all of a sudden it’s like, the next five years you don’t see anything about him. You know, it’s very, it’s closed.

Are there any images in the exhibition you’re especially really excited for people to see?

I think I’m mostly excited that people—when they see John—could see what he was like back then. One of my favorites that I love… him in the Long Island sound where he’s just laying in the water or in water was his friend. He loved being in the water. It was peaceful for him.

I saw another side of John when he and Julian were in the water together. They’d come back on the boat and it’s just the two of them. I thought it was such a great shot. So I was taking photos of them while they were together, which, you know, they didn’t have that many before.

“The Lost Weekend – The Photography of May Pang” opens Friday, July 26th from 3pm – 8pm at Winkel Gallery, 1715 Aliceanna Street

Additional hours: Saturday, July 27 from 11am – 6pm and Sunday, July 28 from 12pm – 5pm.