When people remember John Lennon’s love life, they think about Yoko Ono. But for 18 months, starting from late 1973 through 1975, there was a different woman in Lennon’s life.
May Pang met Lennon and Ono when she worked for the couple as an assistant. But when Lennon and Ono separated in 1973, Lennon and the then 22-year-old Pang began a romantic relationship that would come to be known as “the lost weekend.”
Their relationship was recently memorialized in a documentary called “The Lost Weekend: A Love Story,” and in March, The Ann Jackson Gallery will present an exhibition of photos that Pang took of Lennon during that period at the Computer Museum of America in Roswell.
Pang is expected to be at the museum during the weekend, and before the release of the documentary in 2022 had published a few books about her time with Lennon (“Loving John” in 1983 and a photography book called “Instamatic Karma” in 2008). She recently spoke candidly with Rough Draft Atlanta about that time in her life and why she’s felt the need to tell her side of the story.
“It’s a lot of years, and the stories have taken on a life of their own,” Pang said. “You know, you hear [people] say, oh I know this about you. And I say, that’s not true. That’s not what happened. You know how it goes – the lies that went out have now become the truth, and that’s not the way it happened. So I had to do something about it.”
One of the major aspects of the documentary is how the relationship between Pang and Lennon began. Perhaps as a way to try and control Lennon’s liaisons outside of their marriage, Ono was the one who suggested that the pair come together – a suggestion that Pang found to be “insane.” At this point, Pang had been working for the couple for three years, and had no romantic interest in Lennon. It was only when Lennon began pursuing her – in part, at Ono’s suggestion – that things changed.