In 1973, John Lennon separated from Yoko Ono and began a relationship with the couple’s assistant, May Pang. Ono was aware of this; according to Pang, Ono got them together in the first place. After a whirlwind 18-month affair, Lennon returned to his wife, however. While he wrote off the affair and the events surrounding it as temporary confusion, Pang said she continued to see him in the years after their relationship ended.
John Lennon and May Pang had an affair that lasted longer than he let on
When Ono first told Pang she wanted her to begin a relationship with Lennon, she resisted. Pang said she didn’t want to disrespect their marriage, even though she recognized they were having problems. Eventually, though, Lennon charmed her, and they moved in together.
“He was just an interesting person. He really loved everything, and wanted to explore,” Pang said, per People. “He loved to get up, have his coffee in the morning. He loved blueberry pancakes, he loved swimming. He was just an awesome person who wanted to discover things.”
They professed their love for one another, but in 1975, Lennon moved back in with Ono. The couple went on to have a child together. Lennon told Rolling Stone their period apart was “madness. I was like a chicken without a head.” Lennon himself referred to the time as his “lost weekend.” According to Pang, though, he didn’t simply throw himself back into a happy life with Ono in 1975 as he made it seem in interviews.
“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.”
This isn’t all that surprising, considering the former Beatle’s history of affairs
Lennon didn’t speak about continuing his relationship with Pang, but it wouldn’t be surprising given his romantic history. Lennon’s first marriage to Cynthia Lennon ended when she discovered him and Ono in their home. This was not his first extra-marital affair, though. Lennon reportedly cheated on Cynthia with hundreds of women.
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“John had confessed to dozens of infidelities committed during the eight years of their marriage, none of which she had suspected,” Peter Brown and Steven Gaines wrote in the book The Love You Make. “He claimed in his list of conquests the American folk singer Joan Baez, the English actress Eleanor Bron, the Evening Standard journalist Maureen Cleave, and American pop singer Jackie De Shannon, along with what he estimated at three hundred other girls in towns and cities around the world.”
May Pang admitted she had difficulty dating other people after John Lennon
Lennon warned Pang that after being with him, she would have difficulty dating other men.
“He [once] said, ‘You’re going to have a lot of problems because they’re all going to compare themselves to me,’” she told People. “I never heard such a true statement.”
While she eventually married record producer Tony Visconti in 1989, she admitted having difficulty finding partners who weren’t intimidated by Lennon.
“It was hard to love again,” she said. “I remember a friend of mine said, ‘I’m going to set you up with a friend of mine. He’s great, loves the Beatles.’ Turns out he said, ‘No, no, I can’t, because I remember her with [Lennon] … No matter who it is, they all want to know what he was like. I haven’t dated anybody in a long time, because there are a lot of men who are intimidated.”
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