John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Relationship: A Look Back

John Lennon and Yoko Ono have one of the most famous — and fruitful — love stories in pop culture history.

As lovers, collaborators, artists and activists, the British rock star and the Japanese artist's relationship took many forms over their 14 years together, resulting in everything from peaceful protests to experimental albums. They first met in London in 1966, when Lennon stopped by Ono's solo exhibit. Soon after, they began an affair, which prompted Lennon to leave his first wife, Cynthia Lennon, and their 5-year-old son, Julian.

"When I fell in love with Yoko, I knew, my God, this is different from anything I've ever known," Lennon once said. "This is more than a hit record, more than gold, more than everything."

Lennon and Ono married in Gibraltar in 1969 and the Beatles announced their split the following year, prompting vicious speculation from the media and fans who blamed Ono for the rupture. "Our love helped us survive it, but some of it was pretty violent," Lennon told Playboy in 1980.

In October 1975, the pair welcomed their first and only child together, Sean Taro. Five years later, Lennon was shot and killed while walking into their New York City apartment. In the decades since, Ono has continued to uphold his legacy, accepting awards on his behalf at the Grammys and at his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Here's a look back at John Lennon and Yoko Ono's relationship.

November 7, 1966: John Lennon and Yoko Ono first met in London

Lennon and Ono first met in London, where the Beatles stopped by Ono's solo exhibit at the Indica Gallery after hearing about "this Japanese avant-garde artist coming from America," he later recalled to Playboy. He was intrigued by her work — namely, by a ladder with a magnifying glass on top, which focused on the word "Yes."

After approaching her about the piece, the two had a playful back and forth. "And that's when we really met," Lennon told the outlet. "That's when we locked eyes and she got it and I got it and, as they say in all the interviews we do, the rest is history."

November 1968: John Lennon and his first wife, Cynthia Lennon, divorce

Lennon and his first wife, Cynthia, met in art school and had been married since 1962, when they tied the knot after learning that Cynthia was expecting. While their divorce is often attributed to Lennon's affair with Ono, the songwriter later insisted in an open letter to Cynthia that things between them were over before the affair.

"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!" he wrote in a note dated Nov. 15, 1976, per Billboard.

November 11, 1968: John Lennon and Yoko Ono release Two Virgins

Lennon and Ono joined together for their first-ever musical collaboration, Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins, over the course of one weekend in spring 1968 at Lennon's home in Kenwood, England — the same weekend Cynthia came home to discover Lennon's affair, per the Guardian.

"It was midnight when we finished, and then we made love at dawn. It was very beautiful," Lennon once said, per his official website. The experimental album was released shortly after Lennon's divorce was made official; its album art famously depicted the couple entirely naked.

March 20, 1969: John Lennon and Yoko Ono get married in Gibraltar

The following year, they flew to Gibraltar, where they secretly tied the knot. "It was very romantic. It's all in the song, 'The Ballad of John and Yoko,' if you want to know how it happened, it's in there," Lennon told author Jann Werner for Lennon Remembers, per Rolling Stone.

"Gibraltar was like a little sunny dream. I couldn't find a white suit — I had sort of off-white corduroy trousers and a white jacket. Yoko had all white on." Ono wore a miniskirt and Lennon smoked a cigarette during the short ceremony.

March 25, 1969: John Lennon and Yoko Ono begin their "bed-ins for peace"

The couple set out to Amsterdam on their honeymoon and immediately made headlines for staging a "bed-in" protest — inspired by the sit-in protests of the time — in which they did not leave their bed at the Hilton Hotel for five days as part of a campaign for world peace, inviting reporters to come and ask them questions during the day.

"We knew whatever we did was going to be in the papers. We decided to utilize the space we would occupy anyway, by getting married, with a commercial for peace," Lennon said in The Beatles Anthology, according to TIME.

Two months later, as the Vietnam War continued, they held another weeklong bed-in in Montreal. During that protest, Lennon recorded one of the era's defining songs, "Give Peace a Chance," at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel.

August 1971: John Lennon and Yoko Ono move into an apartment in N.Y.C.

After months of living at the St. Regis Hotel, the pair began renting a studio in N.Y.C.'s West Village at 105 Bank Street, per PBS. Describing their new neighborhood to the New Yorker, Ono said, "It's so good! It's like a quaint little town."

"We love it, and it's the center of our world," Lennon told the outlet of why they chose N.Y.C. "There's an unbelievably creative atmosphere on this little island of Manhattan. Like they say, there just isn't anything you can't get in New York."

The pair released the album Some Time in New York City while living in the apartment.

September 21, 1971: John Lennon denies rumors that Yoko Ono broke up the Beatles

In an appearance on The Dick Cavett Show, Lennon spoke out about moving on from the Beatles, stressing that he had always known he didn't want to go on playing with them past their prime. "We don't want to … be dragged onstage playing 'She Loves You' when we've got asthma and tuberculosis when we're 50," he told Cavett.

Lennon also touched on the negativity and racist remarks directed at Ono in the wake of the Beatles' split. He addressed the audience, jokingly saying, "If she took them apart, then can we please give her all the credit for all the nice music that George made and Ringo made and Paul made and I've made since they broke up."

Ono added: "I think it's very difficult for four artists who are so brilliant and talented to be together and do everything together. It's just impossible. Whatever they were doing, it was almost miraculous that they were together."

December 10, 1971: John Lennon and Yoko Ono perform at the John Sinclair Freedom Rally

The pair performed at and hosted a number of benefit concerts over the years, including headlining the John Sinclair Freedom Rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The benefit concert, which was filmed for the documentary Ten for Two, was in response to activist and MC5 manager John Sinclair's 10-year jail sentence, which he received for possessing two joints of marijuana. Among the other artists rallying for his release were Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger and Allen Ginsberg.

Sinclair was released three days after the concert, according to Michigan Today.

March 6, 1972: John Lennon and Yoko Ono's battle against deportation begins

Having made their antiwar beliefs known, Lennon and Ono became targets of the Nixon administration, which had the young activists served with deportation papers. The immigration lawyer who won their landmark case, Leon Wildes, wrote a book about the experience at their request, documenting how the pair were trailed by the FBI for three years, according to Billboard.

In October 1975, they won the case; Wildes made history by filing it under the Freedom of Information Act and discovering that officials had historically deferred nonviolent or sympathetic cases of undocumented immigrants. Lennon and Ono's case codified deferred action and became the basis for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

June 12, 1972: John Lennon and Yoko Ono release Some Time in New York City

The couple collaborated on another studio album, Some Time in New York City, inspired by the political climate of the time. This marked their second official shared album and their last before taking a temporary step back from their relationship.

November 1973: John Lennon and Yoko Ono separate

Amid the stress of their deportation case, Lennon and Ono's relationship began to suffer. Biographer Albert Goldman alleged that Ono opened up about their rift to their assistant, May Pang. "Listen, May. John and I are not getting along. We've been arguing. We're growing apart," Ono reportedly said, according to an excerpt of Goldman's The Lives of John Lennon published by PEOPLE.

She asked him to leave the house, and Lennon began what fans refer to as his "Lost Weekend," an 18-month period during which he began an affair with Pang and left N.Y.C. for Los Angeles.

November 1973: John Lennon begins an affair with his assistant, May Pang

Lennon's affair with his assistant, May Pang, was first sparked by none other than Ono herself. Pang described the unconventional start to the relationship in The Lost Weekend: A Love Story, a 2023 documentary that details her time with Lennon.

"Yoko walked into my office and said, 'John and I are not getting along. I want you to go out with him,' " Pang recalled. She responded, " 'Well are you kidding? I can't do that, he's my employer, he's my boss. He's your husband.' "

But it didn't take long for their romance to take off, and soon Pang moved in with Lennon in N.Y.C. and followed him to California. "[Ono] did not realize it was going to turn into such a big love affair," Pang added. "She thought it would be two weeks, gone, goodbye."

The relationship ended in early 1975, when Ono decided to let Lennon come home. Pang recalled: "She told me, 'I'm thinking of taking John back.' And I said, 'What?' And she said, 'I think it's time.' "

March 20, 1975: John Lennon and Yoko Ono renew their vows

After the couple mended their relationship, they renewed their vows on their anniversary. That same month, they announced that they were expecting a child after a series of miscarriages and fertility difficulties.

October 9, 1975: John Lennon and Yoko Ono welcome their son Sean Lennon

Sean Taro Ono Lennon was born in N.Y.C. on Oct. 9, 1975, at 2:00 a.m. Sean shared a birthday with his father, who turned 35 the day Sean was born.

"You know, it was a big event for us to have a baby — people might forget how hard we tried to have one and how many miscarriages we had and near-death scenes for Yoko," Lennon later recounted to Rolling Stone, explaining why they decided to step back from the spotlight while raising Sean. "We put ourselves in situations that were stressful, but we managed to have the child that we tried to have for 10 years, and, my God, we weren't going to blow it."

"I see a lot of John in Sean," Ono told PEOPLE in 1982. "He's quick and snappy."

January 20, 1977: John Lennon and Yoko Ono attend President Jimmy Carter's inaugural ball

Lennon and Ono were among the celebrity guests at President Jimmy Carter's inaugural ball in 1977. As they began to focus more energy on activism and politics, they began opening up their social circles beyond the music and art worlds.

August 1980: John Lennon and Yoko Ono begin working on a new album

After a six-year hiatus, the couple began recording at New York's Hit Factory for the first time to begin a fresh collaboration.

"We feel like doing it and we have something to say," Lennon told Playboy about their decision to record new music. He added that while the pair had previously attempted to collaborate, the backlash was too great after the Beatles' split, saying, "We think either people have forgotten or they have grown up by now, so we can make a second foray into that place where she and I are together, making music — simply that."

November 17, 1980: John Lennon and Yoko Ono release Double Fantasy

During a vacation in Bermuda with Sean, Lennon's creative juices began flowing once again and he began to pen tracks that would go on to make up part of their next album, Double Fantasy. The name of the album was inspired by a flower of the same name that Lennon came across at a botanical garden, according to Rolling Stone.

"It's a type of freesia," he explained. "But what it means to us is that if two people picture the same image at the same time, that is the secret."

December 1980: John Lennon opens up about the negative attention directed at Yoko Ono

Lennon opened up about navigating the media's scapegoating of Ono in a famous three-week interview with David Sheff for Playboy in August 1980.

Explaining that the pair of them were "sensitive people," Lennon shared that the negative attention was hurtful and difficult for them to understand. "When you're in love, when somebody says something like, 'How can you be with that woman?' you say, 'What do you mean? I am with this goddess of love, the fulfillment of my whole life. Why are you saying this?' " he said. "Our love helped us survive it, but some of it was pretty violent."

December 8, 1980: John Lennon is shot and killed

Lennon was shot and killed outside the Dakota, his N.Y.C. apartment building. He was 40 years old.

He and Ono were returning home in a limousine from a day at the recording studio together when Lennon was fatally shot by an assailant.

"The doctor came and handed me things. I still didn't believe it. Then the doctor handed me John's wedding ring, and I knew," Ono told PEOPLE in 1990 of processing Lennon's death. "It was important that I give my permission to the hospital to announce John's death. But I couldn't bring myself to say yes right away. For that split second, I felt as though John would still be alive if his death was not announced."

She added: "I still have dreams of John. His spirit is always with me."

February 24, 1982: John Lennon and Yoko Ono win a Grammy Award

Lennon won a posthumous Grammy with Ono for their album Double Fantasy, which took home Album of the Year at the 1982 Grammys. A visibly emotional Ono took the stage along with their son Sean to accept the award on their behalf. They were met with a standing ovation.

Speaking through tears, she said, "I really don't know what to say. I think John is with us here today. Thank you very much. Both John and I were always very proud and happy that we were part of the human race who made good music for the Earth and for the universe. Thank you."

December 1990: Yoko Ono reflects on John Lennon's death

Ten years after his murder, Lennon's loved ones celebrated his life.

"What I miss most about John is his incredible tenderness and his belief in me," Ono told PEOPLE. "Love can sometimes be hell. You could abuse each other in the name of love. But the thing that worked in our relationship was that we never lost respect for each other and always made sure to express it. We loved each other like there was no tomorrow."

She continued, "When you think of it now, there was something so intense about it, as if we knew we didn't have much time."

October 2015: Yoko Ono explains why she still lives in the house she shared with John Lennon

In a rare interview with the Daily Beast, Ono opened up about continuing to live in the Dakota, the N.Y.C. apartment building where she and Lennon shared a home and where Lennon was shot.

"Every day we shared each room," she said. "The good memory supersedes the bad memory. The bad memory was just one that was terrible. But other than that, I felt we were still together."

She added that moving out would make her "feel very strange," explaining she found comfort in being surrounded by belongings "that he touched here, that he loved."

Ono also spoke candidly about Lennon's killer, Mark David Chapman, and why she has repeatedly opposed his parole bids. "It's very, very difficult for me to think about Chapman," she said, adding that she worried that he would strike again if released from prison. "It could be me, it could be Sean, it could be anybody, so there is that concern."

October 9, 2021: Yoko Ono wishes John Lennon a happy birthday

On what would have been Lennon's 81st birthday, Ono shared a tribute to her late husband — as well as to their son, Sean, who shares a birthday with the rock icon.

"Happy Birthday John! Happy Birthday Sean! I love you!" Ono wrote on Twitter, sharing a sweet photo of the father-son duo blowing out birthday candles together when Sean was young.