John Lennon Said the Thought of Having a Bodyguard Made Him ‘Cringe’

John Lennon was one of the most famous people in the world, but he said he had no interest in a bodyguard. The former Beatle received several death threats throughout his career, but he said he did not let them worry him. He shared why he wouldn’t hire any kind of protective detail.

John Lennon did not want a bodyguard

Radio personality Elliot Mintz was a close friend of Lennon and Yoko Ono. In 1976, the couple invited Mintz over after his friend, actor Sal Mineo, was stabbed to death by a mugger. They discussed Mineo’s tragic death and, during the conversation, Mintz asked if Lennon ever worried about violence against him.

“If it could happen to anybody or everybody, why would I waste any time worrying about it happening to me?” he asked, as Mintz recalled in his book We All Shine On: John, Yoko, and Me (via People).

Lennon believed that if someone actually wanted to harm him they would do it.

“All me life I’ve had guys around me who were supposed to be protecting me,” he said. “When the group toured, there were hundreds of police around us. But if they want to get you, they’re gonna get you. Look at all the people that Kennedy had around him. I don’t need bodyguards. I don’t want them. I’m just a rock ’n’ roll singer.”

Mintz asked if the peace of mind would be worth it even if he didn’t think a bodyguard was necessary.

“No,” Lennon told him. “Even the thought of it makes me cringe.”

According to Mintz, Lennon pointed to the Tibetan bells hanging in his apartment as the only protection he would ever need.

He said he was not afraid of death

Lennon said he had never feared death.

“I’ve never been afraid of death,” he told Mintz. “To me, it’s like getting out of one car and into another.”

Ono agreed, noting that they could not prevent the inevitable.

“Nothing can be prevented if it’s destined to happen,” she said. “We once had a session with one of the best palm readers in Greece and she said that John would be killed on an island. Should we avoid all islands? If it is going to happen, it is going to happen.”

John Lennon didn’t hire a bodyguard after receiving an early warning about his death

Four years after this conversation, the palm reader’s prediction came true. Mark David Chapman shot Lennon to death outside of his apartment building in Manhattan, an island. Years before this, Lennon received another warning from a psychic. They said he would be shot while in the United States.

“My second thought [after hearing news of his death] was that for the past fourteen years John had lived with the fear that he would be shot,” Cynthia Lennon wrote in her book John. “In 1966, he’d received a letter from a psychic, warning that he would be shot while he was in the States.”

The Beatles were about to leave for a tour of the United States, so Lennon and Cynthia found the letter disturbing. 

“We were both upset by that: The Beatles were about to do their last tour of the States and, of course, we thought the warning referred to that trip,” she wrote. “He had just made his infamous remark about The Beatles being more popular than Christ and the world was in an uproar about it — cranky letters and warnings arrived by every post. But that one had stuck in his mind.”

While he returned home from the tour unharmed, Cynthia said Lennon continually referenced the letter over the years.