John Lennon Once Almost Beat a Man to Death
John Lennon Rehearsing “Give Peace a Chance”
Today I found out John Lennon once almost beat a man to death.
Was John Lennon gay? “Why are you bringing up such a ridiculous question? Who cares if he was gay? I thought this article was about John Lennon almost beating a guy to death.” Well, it is, it is, keep reading and you will see all the pieces to this incredible, little-known chapter in the life of John Lennon and how perilously close his temper came to ending the Beatles entirely, almost before they really got started. This savage beating also helped change Lennon’s life, as he said “It was the last fight I ever got into. That’s when I gave up violence, because all my life I’d been like that.”
In 1963, the Beatles’ were beginning to become famous in England and Europe. A little over a year earlier, they signed with a manager named Brian Epstein (who incidentally died of a drug overdose just four years after this). Epstein was unequivocal in his sexual preferences- he was as gay as they come. (As a point of note, being gay was actually against the law in Britain at the time, and was to remain so until 1966.)
According to Pete Best, the Beatles drummer before Ringo, Brian had tried making passes at all four Beatles (including himself) and was met, each time, with a polite but firm, rejection. Many Beatles fans knew about Brian’s “secret life” and assumed that Paul, the “cute Beatle”, and the one most of the girls liked, was the object of his affections. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was the loud, overbearing, and aggressive John Lennon who Brian was crazy about.
In April of 1963, the Beatles were now one of the hottest acts in Europe. Their records were selling like the proverbial hotcakes. The first album was sitting in the #1 spot on the charts; their concerts were selling out to capacity crowds; and within a few brief months, they would be playing the Royal Variety Performance in front of the Queen herself.
It was at this time, out of the blue, that John and Brian decided to take a break in the Beatles’ very busy schedule and go off together for a holiday in Spain. The first suspicious thing about this amongst fans was “Why did John go on holiday, as his wife had recently given birth to a new son?” (Cynthia had gave birth to Julian, John’s first son, on March 8, 1963). John admitted, years later, what a rotten and selfish thing this was for him to have done, but nonetheless, he went with Brian, sparking rumors that it was a romantic get-a-way.
Fellow Beatle, Paul McCartney, has his own take on John’s Spain trip with Brian. According to Paul, the trip’s purpose was for John to assert who the real leader of the Beatles was with Brian. That John took Brian on the holiday “…to make sure Mr. Epstein knew who to listen to in this group”. It is interesting that even in these very early Beatles’ days, John and Paul were already jockeying for an upper hand.
Whatever the case, John and Brian spent 12 days together in Spain. “We used to sit in cafes together”, recalled John, “looking at the boys. I’d say, ‘do you like that one? Do you like this one?’ …I was rather enjoying the experience, thinking like a writer all the time.”
The details of the trip were sketchy, at best, but soon John and Brian had returned and were ready to get back to the business of making Beatles records, performing concerts, and making appearances. But in Liverpool, the “gay” rumors were now intensely swirling. Things came to a head with a disc jockey the Beatles knew named Bob Wooler (1926-2002).
Wooler was a very close friend of the Beatles and had introduced them on stage some 300 times. This incident happened at Paul’s 21st birthday party, on June 18, 1963. At the party, Wooler was joking around with John and said (with heavy gay intimations): “Come on John, what really happened with you and Brian? Everybody knows anyway, so tell us.”
John had been heavily drinking that night and Lennon was a notorious “bad drunk”. In a blind rage, John proceeded to beat the stuffing out of a very surprised Bob Wooler, literally kicking him repeatedly in the ribs as he lay on the ground in a bloody heap.
According to John, the only reason he actually stopped the savage beating was because, “I realized I was actually going to kill him… I just saw it like a screen. If I hit him once more, that’s really going to be it. I really got shocked and for the first time thought: ‘I can kill this guy.'”
Wooler was rushed to the hospital by Brian, who was also present at Paul’s party, and given treatment for a variety of things, including broken ribs. Luckily for John Lennon- and the Beatles’ future amazing run- Wooler survived the ordeal.
Incredibly, John refused to apologize. “He called me a bloody queer, and I bashed in his ribs for it”, he said defiantly. Because of this refusal to apologize, Brian had a writer for The Daily Mirror, Don Short, send a telegram on John’s behalf, apologizing. The telegram read, “Really sorry Bob. Terribly sorry for what I have done. What more can I say? -Signed, John Lennon” In addition to that, a payment of 200 pounds (around $2200 today) was also given as compensation.
Despite their very recent fame in Europe in musical circles, this incident actually got the Beatles their first national press coverage in England in an article in the Daily Mirror. (One can easily imagine what kind of coverage an incident like this would have gotten nowadays, with our current tabloids, twitter, and the blogosphere. And, of course, had Bob Wooler not been the forgiving type, he could easily have raked John over the coals, but chose not to. Or what if John had actually killed Wooler by perhaps kicking him a few more times with Wooler’s broken ribs perhaps puncturing his lungs? It would have finished the Beatles as we remember them right there, not to mention the fact that John Lennon would have been sent to prison for murder!)
Despite the severity of the incident and the coverage in the Daily Mirror, the incident was soon forgotten and the Beatles went on to conquer the musical world.
The one murky question for Beatles fans is obviously “Did John and Brian really?…” Beatles fans and aficionados have been debating the question all these years later.
In 1971, in his classic “Rolling Stone” interview, John stated that of all the Beatles he “was the closest to Brian”. (was this one of John’s inside jokes, did he really mean?…) John later briefly commented on the lingering question about Brian and himself shortly before his tragic death in 1980. “It was almost a love affair, but not quite. It was not consummated. But it was a pretty intense relationship”, he said.
About the gay accusations setting him off, Lennon went on to add, “You know, when you’re 21, you want to be a man. If someone said it now, I wouldn’t give a shit”. (1980). But at the time, John was a very macho, young rock star and he had to prove it to everyone.
One marvels when looking at the incredible, unbelievable career of John Lennon- and the Beatles- at just how close it all came to going up in smoke, because of a needless, drunken beating, all those years ago at a birthday party.
If you liked this article, you might also like:
- When the Beatles Were Pelted with Jelly Beans
- Why the Beatles Split Up
- The Beatles Song Named for a Woman that was About a Man
- The U.S. Military’s Proposed “Gay” Bomb
- When the Canadian Government Used “Gay Detectors” to Try to Get Rid of Homosexual Government Employees
Bonus Fact:
- While he may or may not had a romantic encounter with Brian Epstein, Lennon definitely also loved the ladies. In 1968, he confessed to his first wife, Cynthia, that he had had over 300 extra-marital affairs with women during their six-year marriage. He may have been underestimating himself.
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Maybe Lennon was just accepting of gay people, and was curious about Epstein’s orientation. And who really gives a fuck who’s gay.
Sure he was “just really accepting of gay people.” That’s why he nearly beat a guy for suggesting Lennon was “queer.” Because, you know, he was SO accepting.
Sure he was “just really accepting of gay people.” That’s why he nearly beat a guy to death for suggesting he was “queer.” Because, you know, Lennon was SO accepting.
John Lennon is/was great yet not as great as people remember him to be. He was a bully, killer, rapist, lover, human being and genius.
Killer? Rapist?
Drama Queen much, Jon?
Yes John Lennon was a killer. He killed Stu Sutcliffe by hitting him over the head with his guitar. People tried to persuede Stu to get immediate treatment and/or prosecute but he didn’t. I know this because my father in law was thre and saw it happen. (He was in the same band as Ringo Star) Probably not a rapist but Macca was the sex-pest
I call bullshit on this story, it doesn’t add up. In a later book by his sister she claims that it was a fight with Lennon, but Lennon had kicked him in the head, the damage from a guitar to the head would be much greater, and it would require immediate treatment, also would have been much more documented. Sounds like your “father in law” is full of it.
it was also documented that he was attacked, and Lennon and Pete Best came to his aid and fought off the attackers.
Another claim was by his sister that she believed Lennon did it, and he had kicked him in the head, but I do not think that story adds up much either.
There is zero evidence that John hit him in the head with a guitar, and knowing how many people would have been around him at that time, your father in laws claim seems pretty far fetched.
I very much doubt this. John by all accounts included Stu in the band because he had a man-crush on him —even though Stud protested he couldn’t play an instrument. Paul eventually coached him in bass. According to biographer Philip Norman, the Beatles were mugged after a concert and John came to Stu’s rescue after one of the German attackers kicked Stu in the head. Stu died of a cerebral hemorrhage a year later, and people naturally look back to the attack as precipitating it. My own feeling is the the two incidents may have been linked, but that Lennon, violent and possibly psychotic as he later became, was very unlikely to have attacked Stu.
A certain NYC policeman told a group of us outside of HB Studios on Bank St. that a certain “Brit” would be “bashing his Japanese wife’s brains against the walls” that the neighbors would often be forced to phone the police at all hours of the morning.
Sources?
ive read interviews of paul saying john was experimental about his sexuality…
We’re being a little over-dramatic here. You don’t kill people by kicking them in the ribs, unless you’re a 300 lb yobbo wearing steel toed boots kicking a grandmother. What we have here is an average sized man who is piss drunk wearing normal shoes kicking another man in his late Thirties.
It would take a tremendous blow to cause a rib to penetrate a lung. And even there, this is hardly life threatening if there is a hospital nearby. Soldiers in war survive being shot through the lung. People live months with 90% of their lungs corrupted by cancer. The only way Lennon could have killed Wooler is by taking a running start and kicking him in the temple
That is the most asinine statement I have ever heard. Internal bleeding? Organ damage? People die from blows to the stomach and chest all the time.
By beating the shit of the other fella John did what any 20 something drunken thug would do at his day and age. Still a major cunt though.
Sad part of the story (sort of)? Wooler never saw the Beatles again because he was ostracized by them (on Epstein’s orders) after the incident.
I used to work for a limousine company in Palm Beach, FL, where John Lennon lived briefly in the late 70s. The boss once told me that Yoko used to order a Towncar for Sean to be driven around in for a few hours every day because John would get into these bad moods and throw things. Sometimes John procrastinated paying the bill. One time, one of the driver’s just walked into the house and came up to John in the kitchen to ask for the money. John payed on the spot and didn’t seem to care that the driver just walked in. True story! John Lennon’s still one of my heroes, though, along with Brian and the rest of the boys.
sadly booze plus drugs will make you do all kinds of crazy things. for some reason John was the scary one for me
By the way, another thing to remember about John was that he was a libra. Libras are always trying to find that balance. This might explain why he sometimes came across as being hypocritical. John was a little bit of an asshole in real life, so he tried to balance it all out with Imagine, and by leading the Vietnam War Peace Movement. The real issue with him was that his father and mother were never around much in his life, so he was in alot of pain because of that. Thank God for George and Mimi Smith, God rest over their souls. Mimi was kinda in the wrong for lying to John about how close Julia lived to Mendips, though. John was often quoted saying “how many bused and how many trains will I need to take to see Julia”, when in reality she only lived a few miles away. I guess Mimi felt that Julia wasn’t really responsible enough or something.
Quoting from the article: “As a point of note, being gay was actually against the law in Britain at the time, and was to remain so until 1966.”
This sentence is potentially misleading, because of the unclarified use of the phrase, “being gay.” Most people take it to mean, “experiencing sexual attraction to members of the same sex” (regardless of whether or not one “acts out” after having such attractions).
In fact, the mere experiencing of an attraction to people of the same sex is not, and never has been, “against the law in Britain” (or anywhere else). Rather, it was (and, in many countries, still is) illegal to engage in intimacies after experiencing such a same-sex attraction.
You’re an idiot. John loved Stuart and was profoundly affected by his death for the rest of his life. You’re a troll with a blog. Shameful.
Everything i read about Stu Sutcliffe was that he had been kicked in the head by a “teddy boy”, a gang-type guy in England. That injury was supposed to have caused the brain tumor that killed him. He loved and idolized Stu, no reason to beat him up. He wanted Stu in the band, even though Stu could hardly play the bass (just like he wanted Yoko in the band when she could hardly…) In fact, I believe Baby’s In Black was written by John for Astrid, Stu’s girlfriend, as she couldn’t get over Stu’s death. John eventually advised her she had better make up her mind if she was going to live or die. She took his advice and decided to live.