Our Battles w/ Yoko Ono - Former Staffers John Lennon | Fred Seaman May Pang & Michael Medeiros

today we have three former trusted employees to tell us about their first-hand experiences with John Lennon and Yoko first we have the author of a new book which is called the last days of John Lennon which is already making headlines as you can see it was a New York Post last Friday the new book reveals John and yoko's dark secrets okay will you please welcome John Lennon's former assistant Frederick Stephenson nice to have you capture this book is causing such a stir I mean everybody's talking about talking about talking about how long is your personal work with them I worked from them from February uh 79 until uh the end of 1981 so I I worked for John for two years and then I stayed on one year with Yoko so three years total yeah and he was killed 11 years ago yes it was December 8 1980. why did you wait so long to write the book uh first of all I wasn't sure that I wanted to write a book and it took me a while to decide to do it then once I did write a book Yoko uh managed to block me she's a very powerful woman she has very high powered lawyers and she managed to sabotage two of my book deals over the years Savage it has he made phone calls and she threatened litigation and she is a woman who is known for being highly litigious so her threats were taken very seriously and most Publishers in this country are not known for their courage what about there was a whole thing that you stole John Lennon's Diaries I remember reading that I don't feel that I stole the Diaries I did take the Diaries out of the Dakota it was my intention to give them to Julian less than six months before he died John told me that if anything happened to him he wanted me to make sure that Julian got the journals because he knew that yoga would not give them to Julian because Yoko held Julian in great contempt both Julian and Cynthia I took them out here is John's first wife the genius we all know this is right by that marriage and star the Rockstar yeah yeah so I took him out of the Dakota and where they lived yes and I foolishly uh entrusted them to a friend of mine who promised to copy them overnight so I could return the originals back to the Dakota and take a set of copies to Julian this close friend of mine disappeared with the journals and then subsequently tried to pressure me into writing a book with him and he eventually sold the journals to a third man a guy named Norman schoenfeld a diamond dealer and uh dubious businessman and and schoenfeld the return them to Yoko for a finder's fee but why don't you are you arrested I wasn't arrested I was assaulted by two of yoko's bodyguards who uh also happened to be New York City cops but aren't weren't you on probation I was I did eventually plead guilty to um yeah yes uh and I did plead guilty to one count of Larson in connection with the journals because I admitted taking them and I was sentenced to five years probation in 1983. now when that happened and yoga got the journals like why isn't she going to release it what are the terrible things that are in their bathroom well uh the journals paint a very um a very different uh picture of their relationship than the kind of myth that Yoko still to this day uh spreads in the media we all hear that it was the most beautiful wonderful idyllic relations Romeo and Juliet of the 60s give me a kiss and let's write a song yeah that's it well he had to love her so listen to that voice day in and days and that has to be that yeah that's what was it was a tempestuous or what it wasn't very tempestuous because John was at the time that I got there he was basically denatured he wasn't uh he wasn't allowing himself to express much emotion he got angry a lot of times but then yoga would just avoid him so he'd go off and sulk in the bedroom and Yoko would be in her office and she'd started making phone calls and whatnot so he didn't have much of a relationship he really couldn't Express himself much was it a business relationship does she ruled or took care of all the businesses he controlled everything all aspects of John's life his money his social uh interactions everything and he allowed it yes was it always that way or just uh uh it was that way when I got there in 1975 79 and it was that way when he went back with Yoko in 1975 after he uh broke up with May that's when he pretty much regressed to a childlike State and he decided to let Yoko uh run his life he turned over his life block Stock and Barrel to Yoko was that was the drugs have anything to do with this uh I don't think so because in 1979 he wasn't doing any hard drugs the only drug that John Lennon was really addicted to while I was there was nicotine he was a chain smoker he smoked like very strong cigarettes so I don't think Yoko I I don't think that drugs played a role in that what about her I mean there were no drugs in the household oh there were drugs she's she's playing for a long time since the late 1960s and she's admitted it in public she's she said things like it she took it as a celebration and because she and John were in so much pain when they first got together because the British media was really beating up on her so that's when she uh you know and John got into heroin and but he was he was off of it but John got off you see uh and he stayed off certainly I never really saw him do heroin Yoko never really got off she from time to time made an effort she would announce to the staff that she was gonna go on a cleansing fast which was sort of her way of saying that she was going to try to withdraw but to my knowledge she never really managed because she I guess she didn't have the discipline to really uh withdraw did she go in The Classy Fest I know there was a 10 day assignment 10-day silence yeah did they both do that together no well John did the silence what happened was that Yoko sent John and me and and uh Sean and my Aunt Helen who was Sean's Nanny out to their house in Cold Spring Harbor and then she showed up uh one weekend and announced that John was going to go into 10 10-day silent vow he was not allowed to speak for 10 days he was not allowed to drink coffee he was not allowed to read newspapers watch television no he was allowed to watch television with the sound off so she imposed all these restrictions on him and then she disappeared back to the Dakota and I found out that uh in the Dakota she sort of barricaded herself in her bedroom with her a boyfriend at the time A Man Named Sam green she had boyfriends she had a boyfriend yes at that time Amanda she was romantically infatuated with did John know about this I I dully realized at that time in the spring of 1980 the full extent of yoko's infatuation with Sam green he was the only man or the other man that you uh after Sam green she became involved with a man named Sam havatoy who is with her to this day as far as I know he moved into the Dakota after John's death and he became her constant companion and business manager so while they were alive she was he having Affairs too John no he uh he didn't allow himself that luxury he uh was terrified of of his uh marriage breaking up and uh he was just too scared he did at the end of his 10-day silent vow he was allowed a trip to Cape Town South Africa where he told me he cavorted with the hookers for a couple of days in a hotel room people in shock at all these things starting to come out I went by about that I want to find out uh their relationship with with Sean yes there's so many things and and she ate after the baby she tried to eat uh the placenta well what happened oh okay let's go to commercial am I correct trying to eat the placenta it was her intention to uh eat the placenta I'm delicious well we'll be back in a moment we started to talk about uh Sean's birth um Sean was born on the same day same so they have the same brother as his father right now was that a lucky coincidence well when I first found out about it I asked John I told him this is an amazing coincidence that you guys are both in the same birthday and he just looked at me and said it wasn't an accident there are no accidents and later I found out that what happened was that Yoko had attempted to have babies on John's birthday several times and she'd suffered miscarriages on October 9th John's birthday and that Sean was born by cesarean section on October 9th uh several weeks premature so she went prep and I don't think she announced the doctor that she was going to have this premature Caesarean she just went into the hospital actually he was in the hospital on the 8th and as soon as midnight rolled around she said oh I'm in terrible pain you know it's it's coming or whatever she convinced the doctors to do the cesarean the doctors didn't know what was going on and when Sean was born he was trembling and he was shaking so the doctors did a spinal tap on him because they thought maybe there was something wrong with him and when it turned out there was nothing wrong with with Sean neurologically they decided that he must be a born addicted that he was having a Tremors from addiction and in fact John later hinted that Yoko may have done heroin during the pregnancy and that was because John wasn't doing any so it couldn't have come from him and the doctors at first didn't want to release Sean they threatened to either keep him or or get an injunction against them so so John and Yoko fled the hospital you know in a panic with a baby and it was a real nightmare what about her eating the placenta I mean I've heard of weird things Yoko um like you know one of yoko's Silence of the Lambs one of yoko's obsessions um uh Yoko was obsessed with staying young because she was eight years older than John and she was always on the lookout for miracle cures that would rejuvenate her she had heard that in some cultures women eat the placenta because it's supposed to have a rejuvenating effect on them and she decided that she would give it a shot so she saved the placenta from Sean's birth apparently and she instructed someone to freeze it in the refrigerator and unfortunately uh would you like shrimp for a placenta you know what I'm saying some good friends over you bring the wine I'll bring the placenta anyway uh I think the maid accidentally left the refrigerator door open so the placenta spoiled and Yoko never did get to try it out so she should have marinated what about that was some hassle what about the other relationship with the Beatles Because you know you wonder where they close was it no um Yoko wasn't closed with the Beatles Because she uh hated them and they accommodated her because she had John so they had to deal with her if they wanted to have any contact with John uh well I was there uh the only Beetle who had any contact Direct contact with John from what I could tell was Ringo he came to the Dakota once and the winter of 1979 I believe and John spent some time with him in the kitchen and you know he played with Sean uh the other Beatles uh he didn't get along with Towell Paul uh John was uh jealous of because Paul was still active as a musician he was still cranking out hits uh ring uh George he wasn't to uh close with because there had been a big fight after the uh the benefit concert in 1971 where George had invited uh John but not Yoko and that caused the big fight between John and Yoko and then it caused a big riff between George and John and they really didn't have much contact what about the drug bust with Paul McCartney was due to Yoko yeah uh John uh Paul stopped by New York on his way to Japan in January of 1980. he had a sold out tour with wings planned he called the Dakota he wanted to come over and get stoned with John like in the old days right up to 1978 I think he used to stop by from time to time in the Dakota I spent some time with John uh Yoko of course wouldn't put Paul through to John but she did speak to him she learned during the course of their conversation that a uh he or Linda had scored his wife Linda Eastman has scored some marijuana and B that Paul and Linda plan to stay at the presidential suite of the hotel okura which was John and yoko's favorite Suite that's where they always stayed when when they went to Japan when Yoko heard this she hit the ceiling she told John that under no circumstances could they allow Paul to move into their hotel room at okura because it would forever spoil their hotel Karma so she told John and John of course yeah and John of course uh immediately like parroted her line and when I ran into him in the kitchen uh he told me uh can you believe the nerve of Paul and Linda they actually want to move into our hotel room and he said but Yoko is going to make sure it doesn't happen Yoko promised me she was going to put a spell on Paul and he's never going to move into that hotel room uh next thing we knew Paul was busted at Tokyo Airport and uh Yoko had met all afternoon with one of her psychics in her office and she told John she was working on the the Paul and Japan problem uh meanwhile a lot of phone calls were made and we later uh uh heard that she had a cousin or a distant relative who was working at the airport so she just made a phone call and the Japanese knew that Paul was carrying pot they didn't want to bust him apparently they wanted to avoid it they asked him three times to turn over whatever he had Paul for whatever reason just became very arrogant and huffy and so they searched his bags the drugs were apparently right you know readily findable and they took him off to jail for 10 days and what really uh what what killed John was the fact that we heard that Paul was being forced by his Japanese jailers to play Yesterday over and over on a guitar Paul loved it you know he uh I want to talk more with you and uh about the the occult because you just said that very little the whole uh a cult that was in the marriage the whole time her meetings with people we'll be back we're going to be joined if you will please stay with us joined by John Lennon's ex-lover John Lennon and Yoko Ono and within a short time after being hired she became John's mistress and who uh she also arranged well who know who range was explosive up there Yoko Ono set it up Yoko set it up John's wife so if anybody's got stories she does please welcome May Peng [Applause] yeah she she came into my office one morning and said may you know John and I are not getting along I just said I'm sorry to hear that and she goes well listen he's going to start seeing people I want you to go out with him I said me I said I don't want your husband truth no no I know you'll be nice I know he likes you you'll go out with him I said no and she said yes you will and she got up and walked out of the room and so you went out no not quite I I freaked out of course and she went in and I heard from John that she went in and said to John I fixed it and as he was shaving his fixed what the openness I fixed it so you can go out with may he almost slit his throat and uh afterwards we both sort of like went into our separate rooms and she just wanted this to go on and finally it did become his mistress finally and it was after John decided you know if she's going to let me do this and go out and have affairs and I'm going to go for it and you were together what 18 months 18 months now did you move did it become a love affair or was it kind of like okay convenience no it was a love affair we actually moved in together we were together um all the time 25 hours a day so was she upset I mean it's one thing to say to your husband all right uh Dahlia it's not all right but you know Valley little I picked the woman I said nothing says goodbye and I'm moving in with him absolutely she did not realize it was going to turn into such a big love affair she thought it would be two weeks gone and goodbye and it didn't turn out that way and he she didn't know what to do so she let it go on and she would come out to visit us by this point we went out to Los Angeles and she came out to see how the thing was going how our Affair was going she goes I'm glad everything's going on all right then she left and went back to New York and then by this point she started having an infatuation uh with another person so all through the marriage and they were not you know we saw all these they're in bed together they're starving to piece together they're making records together also the marriage they were actually well I think early on in their relationship there was a very uh hot sexual interaction which is documented in John's erotic lithographs but obviously by the time by the time May uh By the time yoga told May to get involved with John the flame had gone out out of the marriage and uh it wasn't happening anymore why didn't the marriage break up why or was it breaking up all right it was breaking up and uh she even asked for a divorce and she didn't expect the answer to come from John to say okay fine let's do it and um it was only a few was it a month or two later she realized that he meant it that she that she said oh no the stories aren't right let's not get yeah let's get and also her lawyers told her that she couldn't keep much of the money if she was worth John so she back there oh yeah she wasn't getting anywhere without John without John's name and then I'm gonna go to the account because we keep coming back they always say the Stars weren't right this wasn't right did he think she had Talent yeah I think in public yeah in public um he would make pronouncements like Yoko was ahead of our time and she's an avant-garde genius but in private he knew that certainly she had no musical talent I mean he was he wasn't a highly skilled musician himself he had a great natural talent but he knew that Yoko had no voice and really couldn't write a song what about the occult she was into the stars and used and psychics and someone told me tarot card directionalist numerologist you name it everything I mean at one point she even had a Tarot reader accused me of stealing jewels from her stealing Jews yeah and I mean that he said that he had sent these jewels to me to send to her and of course it never got to her so when she called him up the Taurus Oh no I sent them to me she she obviously took them yeah was she into accusing people stealing us two people sitting in there and both have had an experience it happened quite frequently while I was there a maid was once accused of stealing a camel here a coat and the maid was fired the coat was later found and the Dakota misplaced uh they had a caretaker couple in Palm Beach Yoko accused them of stealing a fur coat it even made headlines in the Palm Beach newspapers the couple was fired later the fur coat turned up in storage so she's just always worried someone's gonna tell you right I had a girlfriend that had the same experience she borrowed one of John's fur coats and wanted you know John wanted it back and she brought it back but you know because oh I haven't seen it and so again Steven's dealing soon seen Yoko since this yes I did I had a terrible terrible drivers uh yes I saw her in 88 at a at a function but she claimed she never saw me but we were like less than two feet from one another and then um at the time my husband and I left the the function to go have a nice meal somewhere else and rumor had it afterwards they was told that we were asked to leave because it was causing conflict with her we had no idea that was going on that's it Wednesday we're going to be at a third person when we come back we're going to be joined by a man who worked for John and Yoko for five and a half years I might try and talk to him as I was running oh peace Brother peace you know but I believe in runaway and lived to fight another day we are back talking about the last days of John Lennon and my next guest worked with John and yoga for five and a half years versus their garden and then later on as their archivist in doing so he weeded out not only dandelions and poison ivy but also hundreds of hours of Lenin footage and soundtracks please welcome Michael tree Madero so nice to have you here what did you do just go around the house and find tapes and pictures and categorize them and catalog them and what when it started out I was just keeping track of all their hundreds of tapes and records and videos and later on after John was died after John died then I began to organize everything all the appearances they had made on film on video things they had written together their performance art the things in in the book that we have now by Fred um are they true and we just went like the psychics were they so involved with psychics uh I read Fred's book and I I see it as essentially true did they did you come across any tapes or anything oh they they used every kind of psychic you could think of tarot card readers astrologers uh I happened to meet uh uh Man by the name of Charlie Swanner John Green who was their tarot card reader I didn't know it at the time and he sent me to the Dakota to advise a friend of his about uh plans and I found out later that this man had done some astrology reading and tarot card reading and I was the right person so they used all of this so they used to put a hired people everybody who worked there had to be astrologically screened in my case it was easy because my birthday was October 10th the day after John so that was a perfect qualification and apparently my uh this man told me that my birthday was one of the tarot cards the 14th from Venus so so yeah he saw John once said to me that uh oh the Oracle has said that you are ceremonially placed around Yoko okay he loved just sit and watch television you love to gossip that he loved any kind of a gossip he would have loved the show he loved that he was a media junkie absolutely he loved gossip he comes said oh did you know this oh God I didn't know that and he watched his night show he loved that I mean he does he was a real media freak he could he sit in front of the TV he would have the music blaring but the TV was on at all times with the sound off but it was always on yeah what about the relationship with Sean remember being actively in the business for a while to become a house husband a house father was that so was he it was very much so I started there I guess Sean might have been six or seven months old and he took care of Sean a great deal he saw he prepared food or he made sure what food John Sean was going to get he would play the guitar when he was going to sleep at night he would read him stories from books he was with him a great deal give me a typical day oh John would generally get up very early and then he'd go to the kitchen read The Daily News have a coffee eat some shredded wheat and then when Sean uh showed up he'd go back to the bedroom and pretty much stay in the bedroom until it was time for lunch then he'd come out to have lunch uh and meanwhile Yoko was downstairs all the time so they didn't have much contact absolutely well in that sense yeah when during my time before these gentlemen were there I mean Yoko was up at the crack of dawn going through the mail sifting through it and going back to the bedroom and then John would come out later with with Yoko at about 11 o'clock in the morning but she really which is great yeah she didn't she didn't run the business at the time but she would tell you exactly what she wanted right then in 1978 she had an office built downstairs by uh this guy Sam habit toy who eventually became her living companion and once she had the office downstairs she spent more and more time there because she had a nap Napoleonic Camp bed that she would sort of take naps on she didn't need much sleep when we come back I want to talk about uh relationship with Julian if he got pushed aside when Sean was born and also of course the last days and the night of the murder and what took place in the apartment right after that that the child was shot like I couldn't believe it really because um as we all know he was such a nice person really I mean he was stubborn under the certain things about him which maybe people would have wanted to change in him but you know he was such a great person that it seemed ridiculous you know I mean in some ways it's understandable if somebody goes to try and assassinate Adolf Hitler or something but John Lennon had just you know given all that love and great songs we're back talking about the last days of John Lennon um just one question before we get into that horrible last day um Julian and Sean was Junior pushed out of the way you said that yoga consider him a second class citizen oh yeah absolutely she did she didn't get along with Julian in fact I was the one who tried to get him as close to you know father and son and I told John I said it's important for you to be part of that in his life and he said you're right did you didn't get happy the estate well that's an interesting question the uh will I believe was probated at 30 million and uh half of that went to Yoko outright I believe in the other half was supposed to be distributed by her to his British relatives and other relatives uh but in fact uh there is a lot of indication that Yoko kept pretty much all of it and she there were a few trust funds there was a trust fund for Julian there's a trust fund for Sean but I don't think Cynthia or Aunt Mimi got very much of that money what about the last day why wasn't there high security I mean I have very high security I mean I'm nobody you know um their their local Security man Doug McDougall was always pressing Yoko to have people especially once they started recording to have people in limousine going in and out of Dakota and the Hit Factory um she just said John wouldn't feel comfortable with these people hovering around and she said No in fact what happened was that Yoko gave an interview to Daily News in late September of 1980 after when they were recording the album and she described in detail uh they're recording hours what time they went to the studio even what route they took and when Doug The Bodyguard read this interview he hit the ceiling he went to her he said Yoko you know you're asking every wacko in the country to come after you and John you know you have to do increased security and he suggested having a guard posted at each end at the recording student at the Dakota or having a guard ride with them in the limo Yoko uh you know shot down every suggestion and finally Doug The Bodyguard just threw his hands up in the air and said well Yoko you know if you want to get yourself in John killed that's your business I just don't want to be known as The Bodyguard who failed to protect John Lennon did he have a permanent you said in the book I think so I think he did too John was always a very impatient man he was very quick and it seemed like the last month or so he um he was just unflappable you know he had given me a job to do I didn't get it done and I was expecting the sky to fall and he said oh it's okay it's okay and he just seemed to relax and and he wrote that song Living on borrowed time that's not just a song I think that is a a kind of a statement of uh premonition did she grieve was she devastated I don't know I tried calling and she wouldn't she wouldn't answer my phone calls yeah yeah I did that's true but he wouldn't answer I don't he really didn't want to talk to Cynthia she wanted she didn't want to talk to many people that I know of she did great of course she did um I think Yoko did nothing but smoked cigarettes for almost a week and then she started eating chocolates and he was smoking cigarettes where where is she now he's been cremated he's been cremated and I think he really wanted that I don't think so he told me once that uh he given a choice he'd be he'd like to be buried at Sea or uh you know buried but not he had a horror of cremation I think you spoke to the murderer right after you how did that happen yeah I was leaving the Dakota and um some fans who knew I worked for John came up to me and said hello and this man uh Chapman came up to the fans and they pointed me out saying that I worked for him and he introduced himself hi I'm Mark David Chapman I've come all the way from Hawaii to see John meanwhile I'm thinking this is very strange this man is from Hawaii he looked he looked like milk and he was speaking in the southern accent but there was no premonition that this man had any bad intentions yeah do you wind up on butcher because it's been a fascinating fascinating time are you all frightened of Yoko two bodyguards after me who will beat me and put a gun to my head and threatened to blow my brains out and I later found out that these guys were actually New York City cops and one of them is a sergeant assigned to the uh so you are 112th Precinct in Queens you're a little bright no I'm sorry it just cut off but I mean you're they said you're worried because you have a guitar of John that she's gonna say no John gave me a gift of a banjo and you just want to go on record saying that he gave it to you as a gift yes I just thought we should clarify that I have none I have no I'm not frightening different adults retail so the hell yeah I thank you all very very much for being fascinating the book is called the last days of John Lennon and the photographs as you've seen behind me all during the show are from the world-renowned photographer Alan Tanenbaum and they are alone to us courtesy of the Williams Gallery their telephone number is 609-921-1142 okay 609-921-1142 [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right foreign [Applause]

Channel: Policy & Politics

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Length: 30min 18sec (1818 seconds)

Published: Sun May 21 2023