Yoko Ono reveals death threats she got from Beatles fans in new film
A new film about John Lennon and Yoko Ono shows just how much abuse she got from the public for daring to marry the Beatles singer.
Fans will get to listen to unheard personal archive material from New York in the early Seventies, such as phone calls and home movies recorded and filmed by the couple in One To One: John & Yoko. At one stage Yoko speaks about the incredible abuse – comparable to social media trolling these days – that she got after she began seeing Lennon in 1967.
Yoko says: «I’m supposedly the person who broke up The Beatles. You know, when I was pregnant, many people wrote to me to say ‘I wish you and your baby would die’.
«And also, I got a rubber doll that had lots and lots of needles in it, in the body and the mouth and the nose and everything. And when I was walking on the street with John, people came to me saying things like ‘I’m an ugly Jap’ and they pulled my hair, hit my head, and I was just about to faint. And I had three miscarriages during that time.»
She added: «You know, I know for sure that whenever the reporters meet Paul George or Ringo, they would ask ‘what do you think about Yoko?’.
«Now, whenever they asked me about the Beatles, I said, ‘The Beatles are four beautiful, very intelligent, creative, artistic people, and they’ve outgrown the group’. Whereas none of the Beatles made any comment on me. Have you heard any comments about me in the press by The Beatles? They ignored me, that’s male chauvinism.»
READ MORE: John Lennon’s tragic comments about assassination revealed – ‘They could get you in Disneyland’
In another section of the film, Yoko gives a speech at the First International Feminist Conference, which took place in 1973.
During the address she explains the way she was treated by society after she first started dating her husband and the criticism had chipped away at her self-confidence.
For his part John tells a friend on the phone: «I fell in love with an independent, eloquent, outspoken, creative genius.»
John is also asked about the risks involved with speaking out against President Nixon and promoting activism whilst in New York, which upset some of America’s establishment.
Chillingly he says: «People trying to kill us? I’m not about to get myself shot. It will cause excitement in its own way. I’m still an artist, a revolutionary artist right?»
He would go on to be shot himself by crazed fan Mark Chapman a few years later in New York in 1980.
The film is described as a moving look at the couple’s life upon their entry into a transformative 1970’s New York.
As well as conversations it contains restored footage and audio from a Madison Square Garden concert on August 30, 1972 – a benefit show for Staten Island’s Willowbrook special needs school after John and Yoko saw it urgently needed money when watching news footage on TV.
The One To One concert was the only full live show John performed as a solo artist after the Beatles and he was alongside Yoko on stage and their band.
And whilst the film is only released in cinemas next month it already has one big fan who helped enhance the concert audio in the film, their own son.
“I was completely floored,” Sean Lennon said this week. “I think maybe not everyone realises how special it is for me to hear my dad talking or to see him. I grew up with a set number of images and audio clips that everyone’s familiar with. So to come across things that I’ve never seen or heard is really deep for me, because it’s almost like getting more time with my dad.”
John and Yoko perform Come Together, Cold Turkey, Mother, and Don’t Worry Kyoko as part of the set. John would also make other guest appearances at activist rallies too.
John says at one point he is convinced his phone is being bugged, something which FBI files released after his death has proved to be true.
«First of all I thought it was paranoia because I have been reading conspiracy theories, but you can hear things going on, on the phone every time you pick it up, people clicking in and out. And there are lots of repairs going on in the basement to the phones every few days.
«Then we started noticing people hanging around outside the apartment. We’re getting followed by this car so we are all very nervous.» The couple are also shown fighting the threat of deportation.
But amidst the activism and the controversy there are lighter moments too. Among the phone tapes there are multiple conversations about attempts to find and buy flies for Yoko’s 1970 film Fly, which required insects to buzz around a woman’s naked body. At one point, someone suggests trying a pet shop and Yoko is insistent in another call that someone just needs to go out and buy some.
Sean told Mojo magazine: “The idea that a pet shop would have flies is really funny.
«Like, who’s keeping a fly as a pet?
“Working for John and Yoko must have been really fun and weird,” he added.
“Having May Pang running around Manhattan looking for flies seems like a kind of madness. But at the same time, that film, Fly, it’s such a beautiful film. It’s very beautiful and poetic and profound and interesting and radical. You know, living like college kids in a loft downtown, it was a really inspired time for them. I think it was maybe one of their favourite times, because they were having an adventure.”
* One To One: John & Yoko is released in cinemas nationwide on April 11 with IMAX previews on April 9 and 10.
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