Did Cynthia Lennon Sleep With John Lennon’s Friend Magic Alex After Finding Him With Yoko Ono?
Cynthia Powell and John Lennon met when they were in art college. They fell in love and were married for six years. Two years prior to the end of their marriage, John met artist Yoko Ono, who began pursuing him passionately. John and Cynthia’s marriage ended after Cynthia found John at home with Yoko. That night, the scorned wife slept with one of John’s best friends, Yannis Alexis Mardas (aka Magic Alex). Or did she? It depends who you ask.
Cynthia Lennon discovered John with Yoko after a trip with Magic Alex
Cynthia Lennon went on a two-week trip to Greece with “Magic Alex” (who earned his nickname thanks to his electronics wizardry) and Jenny Boyd, whose sister Pattie was then married to George Harrison.
When the three of them arrived at John and Cynthia’s home at Kenwood, it appeared as though no one was home. The lights were on, the doors were unlocked, but the home was eerily quiet. Cynthia began to search for signs of life when she heard what sounded like a muffled laugh coming from the kitchen. There, she found John and Yoko in bathrobes (Yoko in Cynthia’s).
In shock, all Cynthia could muster was what she originally had intended to ask John upon arriving home from her trip: “We were all thinking of going out for dinner tonight,” she said, as reported in The Love You Make by Peter Brown and Steven Gaines. “We had breakfast in Greece and lunch in Rome, and we thought it would be lovely to all have dinner in London. Are you coming?”
John simply replied with a “No thanks.”
Cynthia’s emotional night with Magic Alex that either did or didn’t end in sex
After John’s curt reply, Cynthia fled the home after quickly packing a few mementos. She hopped into a taxi with Jenny and Alex, who told her she could stay with them (they were roommates at the time) while she figured out what to do next.
That night, she and Magic Alex stayed up drinking wine at a candlelit table at his and Jenny’s apartment, according to TLYM. Cynthia had never been close with Alex but, on this night, she was in need of a shoulder to cry on. So she talked to him about John and their marriage. At some time around dawn, Cynthia and Alex reportedly headed to his bedroom.
“Symbolically, it was a way of ending her relationship with John forever,” reads TLYM. “Cynthia says that Alex practiced black magic and that he hypnotized her into doing it; probably she was just drunk.”
However, other accounts of the evening suggest that Cynthia and Alex never did sleep together. After Cynthia got sick from too much wine, she went to sleep in the apartment’s spare room. There, Alex tried to seduce her but she pushed him away.
More on Magic Alex
Magic Alex was a Greek electronics engineer who worked closely with The Beatles for years. When Alex came to London in 1965, he acted as a television repairman to pay the bills. Lennon discovered him via his Kinetic Light Sculptures at the Indica Gallery. The beatle was particularly impressed with his “Nothing Box,” which was a small plastic box that contained random blinking lights. Lennon gave Alex the nickname “Magic Alex” and brought him into the group. Eventually, he became one of the first employees of Apple Corps and was even given his own laboratory called Apple Electronics for him to work on his inventions.
