The Most Violent Times In John Lennon’s Life

John Lennon, best known for singing about peace and love, wasn’t always the calm, idealistic figure he seemed to portray. In fact, for much of his career, anger was something Lennon struggled with deeply. From heckling comedians in the early 1970s to fighting with friends and even trashing his own home, Lennon had a fiery side. This anger went back even further, to his younger years when he was no stranger to brawls.

John Lennon’s Shocking Outbursts

Before The Beatles became a household name, Lennon often spent his nights at a local bar in Liverpool. While his friends remember him as mostly “very entertaining,” his mood could flip in an instant. One moment, Lennon would be the life of the party, and the next, he’d be shouting at people or getting physical. One of Lennon’s school friends, Jonathan Hague, recalled an incident where Lennon started hitting him while they were out drinking.

“He got my duffel coat up over my head and started flailing away,” Hague said in The Beatles by Bob Spitz. “It actually didn’t mean a thing to me; I was too drunk.”

But for Lennon, the incident left him shaken. The next day, he confessed to Hague that he had scared himself with his own anger.

“But the next day in school, in a very shaky, frightened way, John told me that he was trying to kill the person under the coat and didn’t understand the anger in him to do such a thing,” Hague shared.

Lennon’s Struggles with Violence and Alcohol

As Lennon got older, his anger was fueled by grief, frustration, and alcohol. One of the more notable incidents involved a local DJ named Bob Wooler, who made insinuations about Lennon’s relationship with Beatles manager Brian Epstein. Lennon was already heavily intoxicated when Wooler pushed him with questions about his supposed affair.

“I was out of my mind with drink. (You know, when you get to the point where you want to drink out of all the empty glasses, that drunk),” Lennon recalled in The Beatles Anthology. “And Bob was saying, ‘Come on, John, tell me about you and Brian — we all know.’”

In retaliation, Lennon attacked Wooler.

“I smashed him up,” Lennon admitted. “I broke his bloody ribs for him. I was pissed at the time.”

The brutal fight led to a lawsuit from Wooler. Lennon paid him two hundred pounds to settle out of court, but it was an eye-opening moment for him.

“He sued me afterwards for thumping him,” Lennon said. “That was probably the last real fight I’ve ever had.”

The Turning Point: A Promise to Leave Violence Behind

After the fight with Wooler, Lennon was deeply disturbed by his actions. He was shocked by how far his anger had pushed him, to the point of nearly killing another person.

“If somebody said it now I wouldn’t give a s***, but I was beating the s*** out of him, hitting him with a big stick, and for the first time I thought, ‘I can kill this guy,’” Lennon confessed. “I just saw it, like on a screen: if I hit him once more, that’s going to be it.”

This moment was a turning point for Lennon. He realized he could no longer let his anger control him.

“I really got shocked,” he said. “That’s when I gave up violence, because all my life I’d been like that.”

Despite this promise to himself, Lennon’s struggle with anger didn’t fully disappear overnight. Even after this turning point, he continued to display violent tendencies and aggression, though perhaps less frequently.

A Life of Reflection

Looking back on these moments, Lennon’s relationship with anger was complex. His outbursts were often sparked by frustration, alcohol, or personal struggles. But the key difference in the later years was that he recognized the destructive nature of his actions and attempted to move away from violence. Though Lennon’s anger was a recurring theme in his life, his reflections on it show a man who was trying to better understand himself and change for the better.