Popular posts on the Internet tell stories about how John Lennon’s first wife needed money after a divorce and had to sell the musician’s old love letters. However, the anonymous buyer turned out to be Lennon's Beatles colleague Paul McCartney, who nobly returned them to Cynthia. We have verified the accuracy of such messages.
Posts with this story are especially popular on Facebook (1, 2, 3) and VKontakte (1, 2, 3). In addition, it can be found on entertaining websites. Sometimes in such publications it is detailed is told the story of how “the famous, and most importantly, rich musician John Lennon became interested in a strange artist with a dark past” and separated from his wife. But the authors of most posts omit this part and immediately move on to the main thing: “During the divorce, he gave Cynthia almost nothing of his millions, although his five-year-old son Julian remained with her. At some point, Cynthia found herself in a difficult financial situation and decided to sell for a tidy sum the love letters and drawings of Lennon that she received when they were a young couple. Many of the letters began with the words “Syn, I love you very much,” and one can only imagine how hard it was for her to part with such a memory of Lennon, but she needed finances to live with her son... The buyer was found immediately, paid the appointed amount without haggling and wished to remain anonymous... A few days later, Cynthia received a parcel with all her letters and drawings from Lennon, which were carefully placed in frames, and with an attached note: “Never sell your memory. With love, Paul McCartney." There is also a version according to which McCartney personally brought Cynthia a box of letters he bought.
This story became popular on the RuNet at the end of May 2024, shortly after it was distributed English version. How asserts Snopes project, the original was published on May 6, 2024 by user X with the username @An3ita5. This blog is currently unavailable and there is no archived version of the post available.
In fact, information that Paul McCartney bought John Lennon's letters to return them to Cynthia has been circulating on the Internet since at least 2014. Ten years later, the only details added were that McCartney returned the letters just days after the sale and that he allegedly accompanied them with a note saying, “Never sell your memory.”
Cynthia Powell was John Lennon's first wife. They met while studying at Liverpool College of Art, began dating in 1958 and married in 1962. A year later, the couple had a son, Julian. John and Cynthia's epistolary romance began when the aspiring Beatles went on their first tour to Hamburg. In his memoirs "John", published in 2005, Cynthia wrote (hereinafter quoted from Russian translation):
“The events associated with the guys’ first trip to Hamburg have long become a legend, but I have my own, special idea about them thanks to John’s long and detailed letters. He described every detail related to their stay in Germany, including those details that he would not want his family to know. I kept all his letters for many years, but after the divorce I destroyed some of them and sold some when I really needed money. Of course, now I really regret it.”
With the growing popularity of The Beatles, the couple began to correspond less often: the group’s tour schedule was scheduled minute by minute, and Cynthia was busy with the child. Nevertheless, sometimes they still exchanged letters. Cynthia remembers one that was especially dear to her. Lennon wrote it in 1965, and it was about his son:
“You know, now I miss him as a person. For me he is no longer just a “child”, “my child”, but a living part of me. He is Julian to me and everything I have, and I can't wait to see each other again. I've never missed him so much. Probably, this way, slowly, I am becoming a real father. I spend so many hours in some dressing room or somewhere else and all the time I think how much time I wasted, instead of being with him, playing with him - and who dared me to read these damn newspapers and all this crap when he is here, next to me, in the room. I realized EVERYTHING IS WRONG! He doesn’t see me, but I want, I want him to know me, and love me, and miss me - just like I miss me now.
That's it, I have to finish. These thoughts about what a heartless bastard I am will probably drive me crazy soon. Three o'clock in the afternoon is not the best time for emotions, but I want to cry, even if it's stupid. I write, but I don’t have enough air in my chest. I don't know what's wrong with me. It seems that the tour is no different from others, continuous “hee-hee” and “ha-ha”, but in between there is emptiness, no feelings.
I'll go, otherwise this letter is becoming too dreary.
Love you. Very much.
Sin from John."
Cynthia goes on to say that after the divorce she sold several of Lennon's letters, including this one. “A few years later, the new owner put the letter up for sale again and Paul McCartney bought it. He framed it and gave it to Julian and me. It was an extremely touching gesture that we deeply appreciated,” she writes.
Although Cynthia was grateful to McCartney, she did not keep this letter in 1991 sold him again. This is stated in the collection “John Lennon. Letters" In addition, it states that the letter was originally written on seven pages, but only two have survived to this day.
Thus, after the divorce, Cynthia Lennon actually sold some of the letters that her husband wrote to her (and destroyed some). A few years later, one of the sold letters was bought by Paul McCartney, framed and given to Cynthia. It was not possible to find evidence that he advised her never to sell her memory.
Cover photo: screenshot from theguardian.com
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