May Pang Thought Yoko Ono Was Purposely Trying to Embarrass John Lennon

In the 1970s, John Lennon and Yoko Ono separated, and he began a relationship with their assistant May Pang. His 18 months apart from Ono became known as his lost weekend, a period of great creativity and prodigious drinking and drug use for the musician. Pang fell in love with Lennon during this time, but Ono remained a part of his life. At one point, all three of them attended the same show, and Pang believed Ono was purposely trying to embarrass Lennon.

Yoko Ono encouraged John Lennon and May Pang to get together

Pang began working at Apple Corps, a multimedia corporation founded by The Beatles. She worked closely with Lennon and Ono and revealed that Ono encouraged her to begin a relationship with her husband. 

“Yes, Yoko did approach me, and I thought it was insane,” she told Variety. “I told her I wasn’t interested at all. They were having problems in their marriage; they actually weren’t talking to each other. But John spontaneously decided to go to L.A. on his own and asked me to go with him. Yoko wasn’t even aware we had gone until after we left.”

She explained that despite Ono’s encouragement, she wanted Lennon to make the first move.

“Yoko kept pushing, but I waited for John to make the first move,” she said. “It was not something that I wanted. Afterwards, I’d say to him, ‘Where is this going?’ And he’d say, ‘I don’t know. I’m just tired of being pushed around. And ya know what? I’m just going for it.’ He wasn’t happy in his marriage, and it made life miserable for everyone working around them.”

May Pang thought Yoko Ono was trying to embarrass John Lennon

In 1974, Lennon and Pang planned to attend the opening night of the off-Broadway production Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on the Road. Lennon also invited Ono, but she reportedly told him she didn’t want to attend. Pang doubted that this would be the case.

“I just knew she would show up unexpectedly, though,” Pang wrote in her book Loving John. “It seemed inconceivable that she would miss the opportunity to embarrass John in public by forcing him to acknowledge her presence when he was with me, and I told him so.”

Though Lennon dismissed Pang’s concerns, Ono did attend the show. Pang explained that Lennon gave her a “helpless” look when he found out.

“I was right,” she wrote. “Yoko, who had gone with Arlene Reckson and Arlene’s date, had decided to give John a public test. If I stayed put, I knew John wouldn’t ask me to move. Inevitably, though, he would wind up wallowing in guilt about the way he had treated Yoko, and I would have to deal with his upset. It was something I did not look forward to.”

Pang wrote that she offered to switch seats with Ono, but Lennon refused. Pang was glad, as she said this was the first time Lennon had been willing to show that he was in a committed relationship with her.

The married couple eventually reunited

After 18 months apart, Lennon and Ono reunited in 1975. According to Ono, Paul McCartney helped facilitate their reunion. 

“He was genuinely concerned about his old partner,” Ono said, per The Daily Mail. “Even though John was not even asking for help — John, Paul, all of them were too proud to ask anything — he helped. John often said he didn’t understand why Paul did this for us, but he did.”

McCartney had a lengthy conversation with Lennon and encouraged him to try to court Ono. It worked, and the couple remained together until Lennon’s death in 1980.