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May Pang tells her side of the story of her affair with John Lennon.
A trailer for new documentary The Lost Weekend: A Love Story debuted this week, chronicling the romance between the former Beatle and his assistant, who is 10 years his junior.
The then 22-year-old Pang tells diversity that it was Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono who originally started it, leading to their whirlwind romance, which lasted just over a year and began in 1972.
“Yes, Yoko approached me and I thought that was crazy,” says Pang. “I told her I wasn’t interested at all. They had problems in their marriage; they didn’t actually talk to each other. But John spontaneously decided to go to LA alone and asked me to go with him. Yoko wasn’t even aware we left until we left.”
READ MORE: Paul McCartney virtually performs a Beatles classic with John Lennon
Lennon’s so-called “Lost Weekend” included his alleged drunken antics in Los Angeles with Pang, as well as his friends Alice Cooper, Harry Nilsson, Ringo Starr, Keith Moon and Micky Dolenz.
“People took my story and talked about my life like they knew everything about me, but they didn’t,” explains Pang. “I decided it was time to reclaim my own story. It’s my version. I figured if there was going to be a movie about my life, I should be in it. Who better to tell the story than me? I lived it These are my memories Nobody has experienced it like I have. Why would I let anyone else talk about my time with John? He understood better than anyone. He always said to me, “May, it’s your opinion. It is your life. Just be aware that people will be talking about you. And they will lie about it.’”
Recalling how the romance began in 1972, Pang says, “Yoko kept pushing, but I waited for John to make the first move. It wasn’t something I wanted. After that I would say to him: ‘Where is this going?’ And he would say, ‘I don’t know. I’m just tired of being pushed around. And you know what? I’ll just try.’ He wasn’t happy in his marriage and that made life miserable for everyone who worked around them.”
She also reveals that Pang wasn’t proud to be known as Lennon’s other wife, as reporters questioned their relationship.
“I felt terrible, and I told John that,” she says. “Yoko called 10-15 times a day to see what was going on. I didn’t know that she was cheating on him at the same time. I had no idea, and neither did John. We figured it out together.”
She adds: “I just wanted to treat him like a normal person. I didn’t want to be his mother, but I was his secretary, his personal assistant. I would answer the phones for him. When we got together, I stopped working for him. But I wanted to help him with everyday things. I wanted it to be just me and him.”
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In 1974, Pang and Lennon returned to New York to take care of his immigration status in the US
“Yoko told John she wanted a divorce and ordered him to go to her law office to sign the papers. When John came home he said, ‘I’ll be a free man in six months,'” says Pang.
Reflecting on that time, Pang says, “Let’s put it this way: My time with John may have been brief, but everything during that time was monumental. I was there when he last jammed with Paul… I played tambourines with Mal Evans. We saw UFOs together.”
Pang has also collected many memorabilia from her time with Lennon, including drawings and photographs.
“They’re all in a locker and they’re very valuable to me,” she says. “Maybe nobody else. I might pass them on to my kids, but I cherish them all. The first guy I ever lived with was John Lennon… Imagine that.”
