According to Sean Ono Lennon, the son of the iconic John Lennon, his father eventually “resented having to be a Beatle.” The late frontman of the Liverpool band grew tired of being “a part of a machinery,” which ultimately led to the Hey Jude rockers’ split in 1970.
Sean claims that after the Beatles chapter, his father wanted to focus on being a “radical artist and activist,” inspired by his wife, Yoko Ono. However, the 49-year-old insists that John—who was assassinated outside his home at The Dakota in New York City at the age of 40 in 1980—never lost his passion for music.
Speaking to Chris Hawkins on BBC Radio 6 Music, he stated: “I think there’s a bit of a myth about that. I don’t feel that he’d fallen out of love with music. I think he’d fallen out of love with a certain kind of fame. I think he’d fallen out of love with having to be a part of a machinery, of a pop machine, you know.”
Sean Ono Lennon confessed, “I think that was—even though he was always rebellious within that framework, I think that he still resented, you know, having to be a Beatle in a way. I think he really wanted to move on from that, you know. I think his relationship with my mum was the catalyst for it and the symbol of it in his mind. And he wanted to move on and be a radical artist and activist with, you know, this girl, Yoko, who he had fallen in love with. So, I think he was trying to find a new way to do things and looking for a new way to do things,” he concluded.
