John Lennon’s Temper Could Be ‘Frightening’ According to His Ex-Wife

Cynthia Lennon detailed her college-age relationship with The Beatles’ songwriter John Lennon, a class clown with some “frightening” moments. Here’s what Cynthia Lennon wrote about the early days of her relationship in the 2005 memoir John.

John Lennon and Cynthia Lennon began dating while attending college

While attending college, Lennon began a relationship with Cynthia Lennon, then Cynthia Powell. In her 2005 memoir, she later described the highs and lows of her relationship with the songwriter.

“John’s temper could be frightening and at times I felt torn to pieces by him,” Lennon wrote. “All sense of reason disappeared and his tantrums were awesome. He would batter away at me verbally until I gave in, overwhelmed by the force of his determination. Then he would be back to his usual self, apologetic and loving.”

Cynthia Lennon said there were ‘frightening’ moments in her relationship with John Lennon 

Cynthia Lennon detailed some highs of their school-era relationship. For their first Christmas together, John Lennon drew a card with the inside reading “Our first Christmas, I love you, yes, yes, yes,” a similar theme to the Beatles’ song, “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.”

There were also “frightening” moments, like how John Lennon slapped his then-girlfriend after a fit of jealousy. Their parental figures didn’t always agree, which often caused John to flee whatever stressful situation they were in together. John Lennon even had not-so-gracious moments with teachers, intentionally acting as the class clown in college.

“He made it clear he didn’t want to be there and did his best to disrupt the class,” Lennon wrote. “When he wasn’t teasing someone he’d give us a wicked commentary on the teacher or provoke hoots of laughter with his cruelly funny and uncannily accurate cartoons of teachers, fellow students, or of twisted, grimacing, malformed figures.”

While in college, John Lennon began pursuing music with the other Quarrymen members — Paul McCartney and George Harrison. That eventually morphed into the Beatles, with Ringo Starr joining on drums. 

Yoko Ono shared insight into her relationship with John Lennon for ‘Skywriting by Word of Mouth’

John and Cynthia Lennon officially married in 1962, with the couple having their son, Julian, shortly after. The two divorced in 1968 after John Lennon began his whirlwind romance with artist and activist Yoko Ono. Yoko Ono also shared that her late husband would write notes to make her feel “good or bad.”

“He would write me little notes and long letters,” Ono wrote in the Skywriting by Word of Mouth foreword, “I would find them in a book I was reading or on the kitchen table or next to my toothbrush — something to make me laugh, something to make me feel good, or bad, depending on his mood at that time.”