Plenty has been written about the death of John Lennon. The events of December 8th, 1980, have been poured over in detail. It’s been plotted out minute by minute, tracking every movement of the musician, his wife, Yoko Ono, and Mark David Chapman, his killer. It has even been pondered time and time again about what might have happened had Lennon survived to today. But the reality of life after and the immediate aftermath for his family is often forgotten. While the entire world mourned the loss of the Beatle, the mourning of his wife and children was drowned out by the noise.
It was a death unlike anything the world had seen before. Musicians and artists die tragically year after year. The world is no stranger to that kind of collective grief that follows the loss of an icon. But when it came to the loss of John Lennon, it felt different. It wasn’t just that the death was incredibly unexpected and brutal as the musician was randomly assassinated outside his home, sending the world into a state of shock. But The Beatles had hit a level of fame that had never been reached before. They were more than just the biggest band on the planet; the Fab Four were a complete cultural phenomenon that has forever reshaped modern music’s look, sound and landscape. John Lennon, one of the band’s principal songwriters, was at the helm of that. He was, without a doubt, one of the most famous men in history and one of the most beloved pop culture icons.
So after his murder, the response was, as expected, completely and utterly overwhelming. Football games were stopped, radio programmes halted, tens of thousands of people flocked to silent vigils to pay their respects, and, in the private home that Yoko Ono had shared with her husband, total chaos was caused.
It might be expected that in the aftermath of a terrible tragedy, the public would have the compassion to leave a widow alone or at least handle her with kindness and consideration. Instead, the days following the death of her husband were made even worse for Ono by a huge onslaught of strangers reaching out, sometimes with simple messages of sympathy but regularly with completely unhinged stories to tell, so-called signs from the beyond and even threats to deliver.
After Lennon’s death, Ono stayed in their home at the Dakota, the building that he’d been gunned down right outside of. It’s a strange choice, but with a young child, the mother probably didn’t want to add to the upset by uprooting their family. However, back in the days of switchboards and with their address now being incredibly well-known thanks to the media storm surrounding Lennon’s murder, the phone was ringing off the hook.
It was constant as the pit of humanity decided to agitate the grieving. There were mediums calling up claiming to have messages from Lennon that must be relayed to Ono as a matter of life or death. A man called, claiming to be an alien from a distant planet where Lennon had landed and had a message for his widow. A young boy phoned to say that the spirit of the Beatle had taken over his body. A trembling voice came through the phone lines, stating that he had absolute proof that the murder was part of a wider conspiracy. All day, every day, strings of deranged people were ringing up the flat, demanding to speak directly to Ono.
But it wasn’t just the constant calls that Ono’s team had to deal with as they attempted to field the insane behaviour and somewhat protect Lennon’s devastated family from it all. As the couple’s office in the building filled up with flowers and cards from thousands of fans, one terrifying call came in. A man claimed he had placed a bomb in a package delivered to the Dakota, disguised among the gifts.
With a bomb squad in full body armour being snuck into the building, trying not to alarm the mass crowd outside the gates or Lennon’s inconsolable five-year-old son, they find the package identified by the caller, cut through it and find nothing. It was nothing but a prank, a prank so cruel and so callous it feels genuinely evil.
After that, a statement was put out: no more gifts. Ono put out a message in an attempt to protect her home from the lingering threat that had surrounded it since the shooting. She said that if fans wanted to honour Lennon’s life, they should send donations to the Spirit Foundation, the organisation the Lennons founded in 1978 to distribute funds to various charities.
Eventually, the chaos died down. While Lennon is still remembered and grieved to this day, the world moved on. However, Ono held onto her home. Refusing to be scared out of the building by the shooting or the insane behaviour of crazed fans, she lived in the Dakota until 2023, when she eventually retired upstate to a farm where, hopefully, weirdos don’t know her phone number.
