As bandmate Paul McCartney would later note, The Beatles’ John Lennon’s short life was full of tragedy.
Brought up in a turbulent family dynamic after his father Alfred left at an early age and his mother Julia let her sister Mary “Mimi” Smith raise him, John’s family life was never smooth sailing.
As an adult John welcomed two sons, Julian Lennon, 61, and Sean Ono Lennon, 49, – and was a vastly different father to each before his untimely death at 40 in December 1980.
These days, the brothers “face demons together,” according to Julian in an interview with Esquire in 2021.
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“It’s funny because there’s always been, especially in the UK press, ‘Lennon Sons Feuding,’ this, that. We’ve never had a fight in our life. It’s such bull,” he said.
Scroll on for more on the key family members throughout John’s life.
Julian Lennon
John’s foray into fatherhood got off to a controversial start when he and then-girlfriend Cynthia Powell discovered they were expecting a child after they failed to use contraception.
When John (then 21) found out Cynthia (then 22) was pregnant, he decided they would marry – and the pair tied the knot in 1962. Their son Julian was born in April 1963 but John missed the birth due to his responsibilities with The Beatles.
While John was around for the first few years of Julian’s life, he eventually left Cynthia for Yoko Ono and had a strained relationship with Julian for much of his life.
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Julian later reflected on his tricky relationship with John in an interview with The Guardian in 2020.
“Then suddenly my dad literally disappeared off the face of the planet. At least, that’s how it seemed to me. He and Yoko Ono were deeply and publicly in love. And I felt as if my mom and I had been cast aside,” he told the outlet. “Maybe 10 years passed during which my dad and I barely spoke. I was very angry about how he left the family. It was thanks to my mom that we started having conversations again. She was such a gentle soul, never vindictive in any way, shape or form. She always wanted me to have a relationship with him.”
Julian, who is the inspiration behind Paul McCartney’s song “Hey Jude,” written for him after John and Cynthia’s divorce, also shared that he eventually reconnected with his dad before his death.
“I was scared the first time I went to visit him in the US after my parents’ divorce. I was becoming more aware of the magnitude of this man,” he told The Guardian. “Much to my relief, the visit was a success. My dad was charming and funny and warm. From that trip on, I remember us getting along better.”
Sean Ono Lennon
In stark contrast to his parenting style with Julian, John was a more hands-on father the second time around.
John welcomed his youngest son Sean into the world in October 1975 with second wife Yoko, and took a break from music to become a house husband.
In an interview with Playboy that took place in September, 1980, and was published in January, 1981, John shared how well he had taken to the role.
“I’ve been baking bread and looking after the baby … because bread and babies, as every housewife knows, is a full-time job,” he told the magazine at the time.
Sadly, John was fatally shot in December 1980, when Sean was just five years old.
Speaking to Rolling Stone in 2020, Sean reflected on how his father’s death affected him and explained that he still has memories of his dad when he was alive.
“A lot of people don’t remember when they were five,” he said during the interview. “I’ve never asked a psychologist, but I’ve assumed that because my dad dying was so traumatic for me that a lot of those early memories just stayed. I have more memories of being five and four than I do being 16.”
Julia and Alfred Lennon
John’s parents Julia and Alfred Lennon first met when they were teenagers and married in secret a decade later in 1938. John was born in 1940 but his parents didn’t raise him – Julia allowed her sister Mary “Mimi” Smith to bring up her son.
Fellow Beatle, McCartney, spoke about John’s troubled upbringing at the 2023 Tribeca Festival.
“As a kid, his mother was decreed to not be good enough to bring him up… His father had left the home when John was 3. So that’s not too wonderful,” McCartney, 82, recalled. “It made me realize why he had that vulnerability. I always admired the way he dealt with it because I’m not sure I would deal with the stuff he went through that well.”
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Julia was tragically killed after being hit by a car at age 44 in 1958. John was just a teenager at the time.
“That was another big trauma for me. I lost her twice. When I was five and I moved in with my auntie, and then when she physically died,” he told Playboy in 1980. “That made me more bitter; the chip on my shoulder I had as a youth got really big then. I was just really re-establishing the relationship with her and she was killed.”
John and Alfred were estranged for much of their lives but reconnected on Alfred’s deathbed in 1976.
Mimi Smith
John was raised by his aunt, Mimi and her husband George Smith. Mimi and John remained close throughout his life. Following his success in The Beatles, John purchased a property for Mimi in Dorset, the U.K. where she lived until she died in 1991.
