John Lennon was the subject of numerous false rumors. For example, he recounted some gossip about his personal hygiene that he thought was funny. Notably, the “Imagine” singer said he inspired more press the less he interacted with the media.
John Lennon found humor in a rumor about his hair and fingernails
During a 1980 interview with the Los Angeles Times, John discussed how the press treated him and Yoko Ono. “The funny thing is when we were doing the Bed-Ins and all the other strange John and Yoko things in the ’60s, people kept saying, ‘Well, they’ll do anything for publicity,’” he recalled. “But the stories continued even after we dropped out of sight.” For context, the Bed-Ins were a pair of protests against the Vietnam War that the couple staged.
“I kept reading these mysterious little items about how I had become a lunatic or something who sat in a dark room all day with this long hair and these long fingernails,” he said. “I thought it was all hysterical.”
The singer’s life at the time was a lot less ridiculous than rumors suggested
John discussed the five-year gap between his albums Rock ‘n’ Roll and Double Fantasy, as well as his relationship with his son, Sean Ono Lennon. “When I took the break, I never had any time limit in mind,” John said. “I wanted to be with Sean the first five years, which are the years that everyone says are the most important in a child’s life.
“When he was coming up on 5, Yoko and I thought that maybe it was time to record again,” he added. “But then I remembered all the mess.” John revealed that he didn’t enjoy working with people at his record label. Nevertheless, Double Fantasy came out when Sean was five years old, becoming John’s final album. His estate released some of his material posthumously, most famously the album Milk and Honey which featured the hit “Nobody Told Me.”
John Lennon compared himself to a pair of celebrities who were famously
reclusive
The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono includes a 1980 interview. In it, John also discussed the period when he left the public eye. He said his life with Yoko was just as interesting without the press.
He compared himself to Greta Garbo and Howard Hughes, two celebrities whose reclusiveness became the stuff of legend. John felt the media became more interested in him when they had nothing to go on.
His reclusiveness led to false sightings of him. John and Yoko found these stories amusing. In addition, John called the press “amazing,” but that may have been a facetious comment.
John inspired numerous false stories but he seemed to have a sense of humor about them.
