EXCLUSIVE: Beatles Bombshell — Inside John Lennon's Secret 'Gay Tryst' With Manager Brian Epstein That Intensified During a Steamy Barcelona Getaway
John Lennon reportedly had secret gay affair with Brian Epstein.
March 11 2026, Updated 3:38 p.m. ET
John Lennon had a secret years-long affair with the Beatles manager Brian Epstein, RadarOnline.com can report.
Rumors of Lennon's sexuality have reignited after the revelation that Yoko Ono once confessed to bandmate Paul McCartney that her husband "might have been gay."
The Secret Life of John Lennon
Epstein was the original manager of The Beatles.
McCartney made the startling admission in a 2015 interview with Vanity Fair, which was recently re-published by the magazine to coincide with Man on the Run, a new documentary about Paul's life after the Beatles.
It's a secret that biographer Albert Goldman revealed years earlier in his book, The Lives of John Lennon, in which he wrote that Epstein, who signed on to be the Beatles' manager in January 1961, began introducing Lennon to his homosexual friends in London – and the musician "loved this sophisticated, unfamiliar world."
Then, in the spring of 1963, shortly after Lennon’s new wife, Cynthia, gave birth to their son, Julian, Epstein convinced the rocker to take a trip with him to Spain.
Lennon Gives in to Epstein's Seduction
An author said the affair lasted 'several years'.
"John agreed, knowing full well that Brian was intent on seducing him," wrote Goldman. "In Barcelona, he and Brian would sit at pavement cafes. John would point to some passing man and Brian would explain to him what it was about the fellow that he found attractive or unattractive."
For Lennon, it was an intellectual exercise in seeing the world from "unfamiliar angles," Goldman said.
But the Hey Jude singer's curiosity soon became real, and the two allegedly were intimate.
Goldman quotes that Lennon confided to a friend: "Eppy just kept on and on at me, until one night I finally just pulled my trousers down and said to him, 'Oh, for Christ’s sake, Brian, just get on with it.'"
Lennon was the 'Cruel Master'
Bandmate Paul McCartney wondered if Lennon was gay.
However, Goldman insists this was no one-night stand, and the two continued to have s-- until Epstein's death from a drug overdose in 1967.
The author writes that the relationship was more about control than cheap thrills for Lennon, who was also known to have his fair share of female groupies as well.
Many years later, Goldman says the rock legend told an acquaintance that he had s-- with Epstein because, "I had to control the man who had control over our careers and lives."
In his tell-all, Goldman pens Lennon acted the part of "cruel master" while Epstein played the "submissive slave" during their trysts.
Yoko Questions Paul
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Lennon's wife, Yoko Ono, was curious as well.
The rumors have taken off again after McCartney, 83, claimed that Yoko, now 93, once shared her own surprising theory with him.
"I swear she rang me shortly after John died and said, 'You know, I think John might have been gay,'" he recalled in Vanity Fair. "I went, 'I'm not sure.' I said, 'I don't think so.'
"Certainly not when I knew him. Because we'd been in the '60s. We'd been around with loads and loads of girls. And I bumped into seeing him jacking… a lot of girl action. And I'd slept with John very often, but there was never anything," he added. "There was never a gesture, never an expression. It was nothing. So I had no reason to believe this at all."
