Publicly, John Lennon spoke often about his love for Yoko Ono. He left his first wife for her and looked forward to making music with her after The Beatles split. Lennon’s friend saw a different side to the relationship, though. He said that Lennon’s treatment of Ono could be quite cruel.

John Lennon’s friend said he could be ‘cruel’ to Yoko Ono

Lennon and Ono became close friends with radio personality Elliot Mintz. He got to know the couple well in the 1970s and saw a variety of different sides to them. 

“They were paradoxes, John and Yoko, filled to the brim with internal contradictions,” Mintz wrote in his book We All Shine On: John, Yoko, and Me. “That was the main thing I learned about them during those early years of our friendship.”

He said that they had many good traits. Still, Mintz thought both Lennon and Ono had many of the same bad qualities. One bad trait unique to Lennon was his cruel streak.

“On the one hand, they could be incredibly sensitive, honest, provocative, caring, creative, generous, and wise,” he wrote. “On the other, they could be self-centered, desperate, vain, petty, and annoying. In John’s case, also shockingly cruel — even to Yoko.”

His first wife also said he could behave cruelly

Before Ono, Lennon was married to his first wife, Cynthia Lennon. While she was on vacation in Italy, Lennon sent his friend, Alex Mardas, to tell her he wanted a divorce.

“I asked Alex what was going on,” Cynthia wrote in her book John. “He said, ‘I’ve come with a message from John. He’s going to divorce you, take Julian away from you, and send you back to Hoylake.’”

Cynthia could scarcely believe how cruel her husband was acting. She had recently become aware of his history of infidelity, but he insisted he wanted to make it work with her. Not long after, though, he ended the marriage.

“My knees gave way. I felt drained and ill,” she wrote. “All I could think at that moment was how cowardly John was to send his lapdog because he couldn’t face me. Far more than simply evasive, it was sinister and cruel.”

Yoko Ono eventually told John Lennon she wanted a break

In 1973, Lennon and Ono separated temporarily. She told her husband she needed some time away from him.

“One night John and I were lying in bed in the Dakota, and John kept saying how miserable he was, how he needed to get away,” Ono recalled in the book The Love You Make: An Insider’s Story of The Beatles by Steven Gaines and Peter Brown. “I said that we had been together twenty-four hours a day for five years and that I needed some time apart for myself. I told him, ‘Why don’t you go to Los Angeles?’”

Lennon spent the next 18 months, which became known as his lost weekend, drinking and fighting his way across Los Angeles.