Paul McCartney Says Yoko Ono Believed John Lennon 'Might Have Been Gay'

The Beatles remain one of the most discussed bands in music history. Over the decades, thousands of books, documentaries, and articles have explored the story of the group often called “The Fab Four,” whose music reshaped popular culture and influenced generations of artists.

Even after all these years, new stories and memories from people close to the band continue to appear. In a recently resurfaced interview, legendary singer-songwriter Paul McCartney shared a personal recollection that adds another perspective on his longtime friend and bandmate John Lennon.

The interview with Vanity Fair was originally recorded in 2015. It has now been released again to coincide with the documentary Man on the Run, which focuses on McCartney’s life and career after the breakup of one of the most famous music groups ever formed.

During the conversation, McCartney recalled a moment involving artist Yoko Ono, who was married to Lennon from 1969 until his death in 1980. According to McCartney, Ono once suggested that Lennon might have been gay.

The comment connects to rumors that have circulated for years about the Beatles singer, who was tragically shot and killed outside his New York apartment building.

McCartney explained that the remark came up during a conversation they had after Lennon’s death.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono's relationship, as well as McCartney's stubbornness, have been blamed for The Beatles breaking up PICRYL

He said: "I swear she rang me shortly after John died and said, 'You know, I think John might have been gay.'"

However, even though Ono raised the possibility, McCartney himself said he never believed it to be true. He pointed out that he had known Lennon since they were teenagers and felt he understood his friend well.

He added: "I went, 'I'm not sure.' I said, 'I don't think so. Certainly not when I knew him.' Because we'd been in the '60s. We'd been around with loads and loads of girls. And I bumped into seeing him jacking… a lot of girl action."

"And I'd slept with John very often, but there was never anything. There was never a gesture, never an expression. It was nothing. So I had no reason to believe this at all."

For many years McCartney has pushed back against the suggestion that Lennon had relationships with men. Inside the band’s social circle, Lennon’s relationships with women and his embrace of the free-love culture of the 1960s were widely known.

Since the 1980s, McCartney has also addressed claims made in several sensational biographies. Some of those books suggested that Lennon may have had a sexual relationship with the band’s manager, Brian Epstein.

The four boys from Liverpool created some of the greatest music albums of all time and changed pop in just 10 years together

Those claims are often linked to a trip Lennon and Epstein took together to Spain in 1963, the same year Beatlemania began to sweep across the world.

McCartney has previously said he believed the situation was more about personality and dynamics than anything else.

"But I saw that as a power play, which was very John," McCartney said. "Brian would ask him as a homosexual thing – a good-looking boy who Brian fancied. They went down to Spain, had a fun time. No doubt John would play into the thing."

Over the years he has remained consistent in that view. In The Beatles Anthology, the book that tells the group’s story largely through the voices of the band members themselves, McCartney wrote that he would likely have known if Lennon had been attracted to men.

He said: "That was the intimacy we had. We would always be walking in on each other and things."

"I'd walked in on John and seen a little bottom bobbing up and down with a girl underneath him. It was perfectly normal: you'd go, 'Oh shit, sorry,' and back out the room..."

"That's why I've always found very strange the theory that John was gay. Because over fifteen years of sharing rooms, sharing our lives, not one of us has an incident to relate of catching John with a boy."