John Lennon disputes Yoko Ono’s role in his divorce in a newly discovered letter

The open letter to his ex-wife Cynthia was written in 1976 in response to claims in her first book about him

John Lennon disputed that Yoko Ono was to blame for the end of his first marriage in a newly discovered letter.

The Beatle was married to Cynthia Powell in 1962, but divorced in 1968 citing that Lennon had committed adultery with Ono as the grounds. Together they had one son, Julian.

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The note was written in 1976 in response to excerpts from Powell’s book, A Twist Of Lennon, being published in the News Of The World, as Billboard reports. It is titled “An open letter to Cynthia Twist”, referring to her new name following her third marriage to John Twist.

“Dear Cynthia,” it began. “As you and I well know, our marriage was over long before the advent of L.S.D. or Yoko Ono… and that’s reality!

“Your memory is impaired to say the least. Your version of our first L.S.D. trip is rather vague, and you seem to have forgotten subsequent trips altogether!”

It continued to claim that Powell took Julian to visit Lennon in Los Angeles while he was separated from Ono. While there, Lennon wrote his ex-wife asked him to remarry her “and/or” give her another child.

He added that he didn’t blame her for wanting to escape her “Beatle” past, but suggested: “If you are serious about it, you should try to avoid talking to and posing for magazines and newspapers!”

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The letter ends with him saying: “We did have some good years, so dwell on them for a change and, as Dylan says, it was a “Simple Twist Of Fate”!”

Another page asked an unnamed magazine editor to publish Lennon’s letter to his former partner “without any editing”. “I think it only fair to me and your readers to present my side of the story,” Lennon wrote.

The letters are currently up for sale at the RR Auction. At the time of writing, bidding was just under $7,900 (£6,085). The deadline for bids is 6pm ET tomorrow (August 9).

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