The third woman in John Lennon’s life has a different story regarding their ‘lost weekend’

John Lennon’s first divorce, from his first wife Cynthia Powell, was set off when she came back from a trip to Greece and found him having breakfast with Yoko Ono, both in their pajamas. The two roundly ignored Powell. When Lennon broke up with Ono for the first time, he had been having sexual relations with other women under the same roof; on one occasion, Ono walked in and the pair didn’t even pause their coupling. So began the “lost weekend,” as Lennon’s 18-month period between 1973 and 1975 is known, when he left The Dakota, their building in New York City, to live with May Pang, who had been his personal and production assistant. During that time, both were under the long-distance surveillance of Ono. The Japanese artist herself had requested that Pang go with him and behave as his partner for all intents and purposes, because Ono did not view Lennon as being capable of taking care of himself. The official version holds that in October 1973, when Lennon moved to Los Angeles with Pang, he hit rock bottom. That the period was marked by drug and alcohol abuse, by his eagerness to destroy hotel rooms and apartments at the end of his clique’s benders, and by his rude and arrogant behavior at public events (he was even kicked out of the Troubador nightclub by security.)

Pang has another version of this period, as related in the 2022 documentary The Lost Weekend: A Love Story, which is available on Prime. It wasn’t the first time she’s shared her side (the film itself includes interviews she gave in the 1980s, and she wrote two memoirs), but the documentary does mark the first time that the year-and-a-half period has been examined in this level of detail. Pang grew up in Spanish Harlem in a Chinese family; at 22, she established a relationship with Lennon and Ono, who were living in New York after the Beatles’ breakup. At first, she collaborated on the production of the experimental films they shot, then Ono offered her a stable position as John’s assistant. Pang didn’t take Ono’s subsequent request upon the couple’s separation seriously at first, but she soon learned that Ono was being deadly serious. The lost weekend with Pang was agreed upon by both members of the famous couple and John wasted no time in kissing Pang, even before they set off (Ono, for her part, had an affair with musician David Spinozza.)

The documentary does tell of some of Lennon’s excesses in California, but it puts them in perspective. It wants viewers to know that he and Pang were truly in love, that they had a stable partnership with their own social life and shining moments. She admits that there were a couple of violent incidents with him (Lennon later owned up to having mistreated his partners in the past and said that he regretted the behavior.) By the spring of 1974, Pang had managed to settle his mind somewhat, and the two moved back to New York, not to The Dakota, but to another apartment for the two of them. Ono had sent Pang off with a man captive to his impulses and addictions and Pang brought him back sober and responsible. Not just that — with Pang by his side, Lennon repaired his relationship with his son Julian, after three years of ignoring the boy. He also reunited with Paul McCartney for a jam session with Stevie Wonder, Harry Nilsson and other artists. That recording is called A Toot and a Snore in ‘74 and is not included in any official discography, though its bootleg version traveled the world. Aside from having a good time, McCartney also managed to relay a message to Lennon: Ono was open to considering his return.

Julian (in a live interview) and McCartney (off-camera) both confirm in the documentary that their relationships with Lennon were reestablished during that strange lapse of time. Lennon even seemed open to a Beatles reunion (though he wasn’t very consistent when it came to this prospect and on other occasions refused to contemplate such a return.) He also collaborated with Elton John, with whom Lennon released his only number one hit outside the Beatles — Imagine failed to reach the top of the charts — Whatever Gets You Thru the Night. John had Lennon join him onstage at Madison Square Garden to perform three songs in what turned out to be the Liverpudlian’s final large-scale concert. The period was also a fertile moment for Lennon’s solo career. He put out Walls and Bridges and wound up releasing a cover album, Rock ‘n’ Roll, a challenging project in the hands of the genius, if psychopathic, producer Phil Spector.

Though Pang measures her words, Ono emerges as the villain of the piece. A person so manipulative she even wanted to choose her ex’s lover, one who, during that separation, contacted Pang on a daily basis. A revealing moment comes when, after a spat, Pang left just as Lennon was due to receive a visit from Powell and Julian in New York. But Ono called Pang to order her to go back, saying Lennon couldn’t be left alone for the reunion with his ex-wife and their son, that he wasn’t ready for such an interaction. Pang obeyed. In the documentary, she speaks of how Ono had previously forced her to intercept calls from Julian to his progenitor, that she had ordered her to do all she could to block their father-son relationship. The assistant not only facilitated that subsequent reunion, she also forged a lasting friendship with Cynthia. The portrait of Lennon that emerges is of a bitter man passing through a delayed adolescence, overwhelmed by his own persona, with a tendency to go wild and an enormous emotional dependence on those around him.

Pang says that in February 1975, she and Lennon were looking at buying a house, starting a home, when Ono decided the lost weekend was over. “Yoko is letting me come home,” Lennon told Pang. “She’s letting you?” she responded. The rest is history: Lennon went back to The Dakota and became, in his own words, a house husband. They had his second son, Sean, and Lennon dedicated himself to being a dad. He put his musical career on hold until 1980, when the couple released Double Fantasy, three weeks before he was assassinated in the entryway of his building on December 8 by Marc Chapman. Less widely known is that Pang holds that she and Lennon had furtive encounters until his death, that their intimacy continued to the very end.

In The Lost Weekend, it becomes clear that Pang doesn’t want to go down in rock ‘n’ roll history as the other woman, and much less a mistress for hire. Rather, she holds, she was the third steady partner that Lennon ever had, a relationship that was prematurely cut short, and that she was one of his closest artistic collaborators during one of his creative high points. To her chagrin, the official version of their lives is still being dictated by Ono.

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