A Timeline of Yoko (Maybe) Calling John Gay
Since it's in the tumblr news thanks to Vanity Fair publishing the entirety of Joe Hagan's 2015 interview with Paul in which Paul recounts a certain phone call with Yoko not long after John's death, I got the urge to Make A List. I'll freely admit that all of these are potentially deniable or dismissable and don't count as hard evidence for anything. But they do show a broad and interesting (to me) pattern.
1.June 1968: Yoko's audio diary
This is not a definitive example at all, and most of the things she says can be interpreted differently. But does say a couple of interesting things that may have relevance when taken into account with later examples. For context, this is a few weeks into their official relationship, when Yoko started attending studio sessions.
So, I was just thinking about it. It’s so important that you [John] come inside me, instead of coming in my hand or something. You see, and then you say that there’s no difference, but if you understand the difference of that, that’s when you would really start to understand what it means to love somebody it sort of occurred to me [....] At some time of your life you had a situation where you became scared of a straight* relationship, of giving to each other and instead of giving to women, you’d rather spit on the sky or shoot it to the sky kind of thing. I mean you said it, that’s like a strange kind of nihilism of kind of a “fuck you all” kind of thing. It’s avoiding, avoiding something. Avoiding communication.
Note*: By "straight relationship" Yoko doesn't mean heterosexual, but the 1960s meaning of "straight" as in normal, conventional. However it's still interesting that she describes John as avoiding a "normal" relationship. She frames it on the tape as avoiding sincere connection and communication, something she says she does too, so it's quite likely that's all she means by this. But the addition of "not coming inside" makes the passage a little suggestive, so it's worth recording.
More from the audio diary:
Nothing that I notice today that I really feel proud of, is that for instance, your handwriting, it’s always been like, all your letters were going backwards, leaning backwards, which means tremendous insecurity. But today I’ve seen, that all your letters were leaning forward, not all, but most of them were sort of leaning forward. At least that you’re suddenly starting to, instead of being reticent, starting to become forward and aggressive. Which is like a very normal thing, for men. Their leaning backwards handwriting is typical of, sort of, insecure, terribly insecure high school girl or something like that. It’s very rare to see it in a man, did you know that? And when I saw, when I first saw your handwriting, I was really amazed ‘cause you very rarely see that in a man.
Saying that John's handwriting is feminine isn't exactly the same as calling him gay, but it's not a million miles away either. And she seems to be giving herself credit for "masculinising" his handwriting. She goes on to blame John's marriage for his supposed feminine qualities like insecurity, passiveness and paranoia so I can't say that she's ascribing it to something innate in him, at least not at this stage.
And of course the famous-
And I feel like he’s [Paul] my younger brother or something like that. I’m sure that if he had been a woman or something, he would have been a great threat, because there’s something definitely very strong with [me], John, and Paul.
(It's unclear if she says "me, John and Paul" or just "John and Paul", so I've put "me" in brackets)
Listen to the full audio diary here.
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2. John and Yoko's interview with Dave Sholin and Laurie Kaye, 8 December 1980
The long unedited audio of this interview hasn't been fully transcribed yet, so you won't find the quote in any of the existing transcripts online (including on the McLennon Files Archive, yet). It's from 00:26:19 in of the full unedited audio interview.
[Talking about the Double Fantasy song "Yes I'm Your Angel"]
Yoko: And it’s sort of like a tongue-in-cheek, “you’re my fairy”, you know. (laughs) And John would say “Oh, great, great, now I can come out of the closet!” Interviewer: After all these years. Yoko: Right. (laughs)
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3. Yoko's interview with Philip Norman, The Sunday Times, 3 May 1981.
I used to say to him [John] 'I think you're a closet f*g, you know'. Because when we started to live together, John would say to me 'Do you know why I like you? Because you look like a bloke in drag. You look like a mate.'
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4. Yoko's apparent phone call to Paul not long after John's death, described in Joe Hagan's interview with Paul, 25 March 2015.
She’s [Yoko] an artist. She’s kooky. But John loved her, and that’s the bottom line. You really can’t go beyond that, no matter what you might think. Not my type, but I swear she rang me shortly after John died and said, “You know, I think John might have been gay.” I went, 'I’m not sure.” I said, “I don’t think so. Certainly not when I knew him.' [....] So anyway, that’s what I say about Yoko being sort of kooky. And I actually said that to a friend of mine, Robert Fraser, who was gay, and he got very annoyed. “Why would anyone say that? Maybe a year after he’s dead, maybe. But people say crazy things.
Saying that Robert Fraser said that it would have been better for Yoko to say this to Paul "maybe a year after he [John] is dead", implies that the phone call took place sometime before December 1981. Also, Fraser died in 1986 so it couldn't have been after that.
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5. A lyric in "No No No" from Yoko's 1981 album Season of Glass
(This is pretty tentative, as she may have already been in a relationship with Sam Havadtoy at this time and so not be addressing the memory of John. Or it could be addressed to someone else altogether. Or simply be a song lyric with no relation to her actual life at all. So bear in mind.)
You're thinking of Rock Hudson when we do it (let's do it!)
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6. Yoko's comments to Jann Wenner during the 1980s, as reported in Joe Hagan's 2017 biography of Wenner, Sticky Fingers.
Wenner would get mad when [Sam] Havadtoy encouraged Jane [Wenner's then-wife] to spend too much on carpets, but over dinner the Wenners learned the secrets of the Beatles kingdom from Ono, who would often suggest to Wenner that John Lennon was gay. 'She’s always hinted that there was some gay component to John,' said Wenner, 'but in a vague or generalized way, like, "Isn't everybody gay?” Or, "I always told John he was gay."' (She also told McCartney this theory after Lennon died, which he didn’t believe.)
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7. Yoko's paraphrased comments in Philip Norman's 2008 biography of John.
Indeed, John’s wounded anger was more that of an ex-spouse than ex-colleague, reinforcing a suspicion already in Yoko’s mind that his feelings for Paul had been far more intense than the world at large ever guessed. From chance remarks he had made, she gathered there had even been a moment when—on the principle that bohemians should try everything—he had contemplated an affair with Paul, but had been deterred by Paul’s immovable heterosexuality. Nor, apparently, was Yoko the only one to have picked up on this. Around Apple, in her hearing, Paul would sometimes be called John’s Princess. She had also once heard a rehearsal tape with John’s voice calling out “Paul…Paul…” in a strangely subservient, pleading way. “I knew there was something going on there,” she remembers. “From his point of view, not from Paul’s. And he was so angry at Paul, I couldn’t help wondering what it was really about."
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7. Yoko's interview with the Daily Beast, 13 October 2015
“John and I had a big talk about it, saying, basically, all of us must be bisexual. And we were sort of in a situation of thinking that weʼre not [bisexual] because of society. So we are hiding the other side of ourselves, which is less acceptable. But I donʼt have a strong sexual desire towards another woman.”[...] “Itʼs great,” Ono laughs. “I mean, both John and I thought it was good that people think we were bisexual, or homosexual.” She laughs again.
Interviewer: Did Lennon have sex with other men?
“I think he had a desire to, but I think he was too inhibited,” says Ono. [...] “No, not inhibited. He said, ʻI donʼt mind if thereʼs an incredibly attractive guy.ʼ Itʼs very difficult: They would have to be not just physically attractive, but mentally very advanced too. And you canʼt find people like that.”
Interviewer: So did Lennon ever have sex with men?
“No, I donʼt think so,” says Ono. “The beginning of the year he was killed, he said to me, ʻI could have done it, but I canʼt because I just never found somebody that was that attractive.ʼ Both John and I were into attractiveness—you know—beauty. [...] I donʼt make anything out of it. When youʼre not really interested in that sort of sex, you donʼt think about it. Both John and I surprisingly were very passive people. Unless somebody made a thing out of it, if they made a move, I wouldnʼt even think about it.”
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