Music
John Lennon’s son felt abandoned by his father. He shared how it felt to grow up while watching his father grow wealthy.
When John Lennon’s younger son, Sean, was born, the musician spoke about him with great pride. He stepped away from the public eye and his music career in order to raise him. He did not treat his older son this way. Julian Lennon was born during Beatlemania and spent little time with his father after his parents divorced. He spoke about how proud he was of his mother for raising him on “very little” while Lennon continued to get richer.
John Lennon’s son said he felt like his father cast him aside
After John and Cynthia Lennon divorced, Julian Lennon saw very little of his father. He said his mother was primarily responsible for raising him, and he believed that she did a great job.
“I’m immensely proud of her,” he wrote in the foreword to Cynthia’s book, John. “She’s always been there for me; she was the one who kept it all together, taught me what matters in life, and stayed strong when our world was crumbling.”
He said that Cynthia had to find ways to support him. Though Lennon was very rich, Julian said he and Cynthia did not have much.
“While Dad was fast becoming one of the wealthiest men in his field, Mum and I had very little and she was going out to work to support us,” he wrote. “Mum has always acted with dignity and I have her to thank for who I am.”
Julian Lennon said he blamed his father for not being there for him
Even after Lennon reconnected with Julian, their relationship was not a particularly close one.
“It was still very distant. I probably knew him as much as I know you,” he told a reporter for The Telegraph in 1998. “That’s about how warm it was. There were cuddles now and then but there was always an uneasy tension.”
He noted that he blamed Lennon for being a “poor father.” Julian believed that Lennon should have stepped up as a parent.
“If you bring a child into this world, whether it’s planned or an accident, you’d better make sure you can care for it,” he said. “You have to be around. You make time. It’s as simple as that.”
John Lennon’s son felt closer to him after watching ‘The Beatles: Get Back’
Julian said that he eventually grew to forgive his father. In 2021, he said he felt closer to him than he had in years after watching the docuseries The Beatles: Get Back.
“Watching Get Back, I fell in love with my father again because I saw him as he was, as I remember him as a kid, before it all went a bit pear-shaped,” he told Esquire in 2023. “I came away feeling so proud to be a Lennon. I’ve always pushed it away a little bit, trying to forge my own path, but after this I’ve just now taken on this new mantle … I’m so proud to be part of the legacy and history of what went before and hopefully going to do some justice in carrying on with that.”
