Paul McCartney Says Yoko Ono Questioned John Lennon’s Sexuality
Sir Paul McCartney has revisited a personal conversation he says he had with Yoko Ono shortly after John Lennon’s death, recalling that she raised the possibility that Lennon “might have been gay.” In the anecdote, McCartney said he pushed back, citing what he remembered from their years together as bandmates in The Beatles and describing why he never believed Lennon’s sexuality was in doubt.
In the interview, Variety reported that McCartney said Ono rang him after Lennon died in 1980 and told him, “You know, I think John might have been gay,” a remark McCartney described as surprising.
McCartney said he disagreed, explaining that during the 1960s he saw Lennon surrounded by women and never experienced anything in their close friendship—despite frequently sharing hotel rooms on the road—that suggested Lennon was attracted to men. He also addressed long-running rumours tied to Lennon’s 1963 trip to Spain with Beatles manager Mr. Brian Epstein, characterising it as Lennon “playing into” Epstein’s attraction as a form of leverage rather than evidence of a relationship.
The resurfaced comments follow other renewed attention on Beatles-era relationships, including a moment when John Lennon’s son defended Paul McCartney’s reaction to tragedy in a separate discussion about how the surviving Beatles processed loss and public scrutiny.
The remarks were originally given in a 2015 interview and have circulated again in recent weeks, underscoring how private conversations from the immediate aftermath of Lennon’s 1980 murder continue to shape the public’s understanding of the band’s inner circle. McCartney’s account, while second-hand, offers a rare glimpse at the kinds of raw, uncertain exchanges that can happen in grief—and how they can echo for decades.
