John Lennon Never Mentioned Girlfriend May Pang’s Name, but She Claimed They Remained Involved Until His Death
In 1973, John Lennon began a relationship with his assistant, May Pang. His marriage to Yoko Ono had been on rocky terrain for some time, and she suggested they take a break. For 18 months, Lennon cavorted around Los Angeles with Pang by his side. She has spoken often about their affair in the years since, insisting that the romance between them never fizzled out. Lennon’s close friend, Elliot Mintz, had very different memories of the relationship.
May Pang said her affair with John Lennon continued long after his ‘Lost Weekend’
According to Pang, Ono was the first to suggest she begin a relationship with Lennon. Lennon was on board, but Pang said she had reservations. She explained that she cried the first time they slept together because she didn’t know where the affair would lead.
“I didn’t know where it was going to lead,” she told People. “I was like, ‘What’s going to happen?’ I was very content in working. [But] he kept saying, ‘I don’t know where this is going to lead, but let’s just do the jump.'”
Pang claimed that Ono’s presence still loomed over the affair. She called often, talking to both Pang and Lennon for updates. In 1975, she welcomed Lennon back home to New York and he accepted. While they resumed their marriage, Pang said this was not the end of her relationship with the former Beatle.
“He’d secretly come over to see me. He would say, ‘You know, I still love you,'” she said. “He said things to me that were really very intimate and you could sense there was something still. It was gnawing at him. It was not a finished situation.”
John Lennon’s friend had differing memories of his relationship with May Pang
Pang’s memories of the sweeping love affair do not line up with Mintz’s. He was a close friend of Lennon and Ono’s in the 1970s.
“She’s published several books about her affair with John, discussed the intimate details of it in documentaries, and given hundreds of interviews on the subject,” Mintz wrote in his book We All Shine On: John, Yoko, and Me. “And if you believe her account, you inevitably come away with the impression that for a time she was the red-hot center of John’s universe — that their romance was the axis around which the entire Lost Weekend revolved. I don’t doubt that she believes this to be true.”
Mintz said he liked Pang when he met her. Still, he didn’t think she was as significant a presence in Lennon’s life as she claimed. He couldn’t remember discussing her with Lennon even once.
“I can also tell you that after I dropped her and John off at [music manager Lou] Adler’s house — stopping briefly at a bank on the way to cash those traveler’s checks — I seldom bumped into her again in Los Angeles,” he wrote. “Perhaps even more tellingly, in all the years I knew John — all the way up to his final days — I cannot recall a single conversation in which he mentioned her name.”
He returned to Yoko Ono in 1975
After 18 months of abject chaos, Lennon settled back down with Ono. They missed each other.
“We ended up together again because it was diplomatically viable . . . come on,” Lennon told Rolling Stone. “We got back together because we love each other.”
Lennon said that his behavior — the drinking, drug use, and headline-making fights — was a symptom of his heartbreak. He was glad to get back to life with Ono.
“[The separation] didn’t work out. And the reaction to the breakup was all that madness,” he said. “I was like a chicken without a head.”
