LGBT Book & Video Blog: John Lennon Biographer Defends Gay Claim In His New Book

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September 20, 2008

John Lennon Biographer Defends Gay Claim In His New Book

Noted rock author Phillip Norman is amazed that Yoko Ono has disapproved of his upcoming 800-page biography "John Lennon: The Life," calling the book "too mean" to Lennon's memory. As with Norman's 1981 book, Shout! The Beatles In Their Generation, Yoko worked closely with Norman, and only after reading the finished manuscript has she disowned the project.

Norman, who is among the most revered of rock authors, can't believe that Ono is upset over the book contents, when it was the late Beatles'widow who supplied so much of the revealing content: "In the end, it was the spirit of the book, I think, that she didn't like. And it was surprising to me, because the book was written in the way that I'd always written about John (which was) through Yoko talking to me, which is always in this very loving but kind of exasperated sort kind of tone: 'Oh that was so John' kind of thing -- so I was astonished when she just seemed to dislike it in such totality, but I do hope that she's going to change that view."

Both Yoko and Paul McCartney are reportedly up-in-arms about a very brief aside in the book in which Yoko reveals that Lennon mulled over having a gay fling with McCartney. Norman contends that Yoko was very direct and forthcoming about Lennon's willingness to explore both straight and gay sex -- including a possible affair with the Beatles' manager Brian Epstein -- although there is no concrete documentation that he ever acted on it: "Y'know Yoko was willing to go into this territory, to say that there was a time when John was so ambitious that he realized that John was gay, and he more or less said to Brian that if it will help, 'You manage the group to your utmost abilities, I'm willing to go along with that.'Brian then wouldn't take advantage of that, being innately decent and gentle as he was."

Yoko was interviewed extensively for the book -- which is the most exhaustive Lennon biography in almost 25 years -- leading the way for Norman to interview McCartney, longtime Beatles right-hand man, the late Neil Aspinall, Lennon's first cousins, his father's second wife, and Sean Lennon.