John Lennon and Brian Epstein on their trip to Barcelona
Let me ask you about something else that was in the Hunter Davies book. At one point you and Brian went off to Spain.
Yes.
Did you… you must have...
We didn’t have an affair.
You never had an affair with Brian?
No, not an affair.
What were the pressures from Brian?
Cyn was having a baby and the holiday was planned, but I wasn’t going to break the holiday for a baby and that’s what a bastard I was. And I just went on holiday. I watched Brian picking up the boys. I like playing a bit faggy, all that. It was enjoyable, but there were big rumors in Liverpool, it was terrible. Very embarrassing.
Rumors about you and Brian?
Oh, fuck knows—yes, yes. I was pretty close to Brian because if somebody's going to manage me, I want to know them inside out. And there was a period when he told me he was a fag and all that. I introduced him to pills, which gives me a guilt association for his death. I mean they go that way anyway. And to make him talk—to find out what he’s like. And I remember him saying, “Don’t ever throw it back in me face, that I’m a fag.” Which I didn’t. But his mother’s still hiding that.
John Lennon via Lennon Remembers by Jann Wenner
I was on holiday with Brian Epstein in Spain, where the rumors went around that he and I were having a love affair. Well, it was almost a love affair, but not quite. It was never consummated. But it was a pretty intense relationship.
It was my first experience with a homosexual that I was conscious was homosexual. He had admitted it to me. We had this holiday together because Cyn was pregnant, and I went to Spain and there were lots of funny stories. We used to sit in a cafe in Torremolinos looking at all the boys and I’d say, ‘Do you like that one, do you like this one?’ I was rather enjoying the experience, thinking like a writer all the time: I am experiencing this, you know. And while he was out on the tiles one night, or lying asleep with a hangover one afternoon, I remember playing him the song "Bad To Me." That was a commissioned song, done for Billy J Kramer, who was another of Brian’s singers.
John Lennon via Rolling Stone, 1980
"What happened," John explained, "is that Eppy just kept on and on at me. Until one night I finally just pulled me trousers down and said to him: 'Oh, for Christ's sake, Brian, just stick it up me fucking arse then.'
"And he said to me, 'Actually, John, I don't do that kind of thing. That's not what I like to do.'
"'Well,' I said, 'what is it you want to do, then?'
"And he said, 'I'd really just like to touch you, John.'
"And so I let him toss me off."
And that was that. End of story.
"That's all, John?" I said. "Well, so what? What's the big fucking deal, then?"
"Yeah, so fucking what! The poor bastard. He's having a fucking hard enough time anyway." This was in reference to the "butch" dockers who, on several recent occasions, had rewarded Brian's advances by beating him to a bloody pulp.
"So what harm did it do, then, Pete, for fuck's sake?" John asked rhetorically. "No harm at all. The poor fucking bastard, he can't help the way he is."
...And as far as I was concerned, the real revelation that night was not that John had "had it off" with Brian, but that he had demonstrated—albeit in his own brusque way—such genuine compassion for that most hopelessly besotted of all his many admirers.
The Beatles, Lennon, and Me by Pete Shotton and Nicholas Shaffer
[Lennon] told me afterwards in one of our frankest heart-to-hearts that Brian never seriously did proposition him. He had teased Brian about the young men he kept gazing at and the odd ones who had found their way to his room. Brian had joked to John about the women who hurled themselves at him. "If he'd asked me, I probably would have done anything he wanted. I was so much in awe of Brian then I'd have tried a night of vice-versa. But he never wanted me like that. Sure, I took the mickey a bit and pretended to lead him on. But we both knew we were joking. He wanted a pal he could have a laugh with and someone he could teach about life. I thought his bum boys were creeps and Brian knew that. Even completely out of my head, I couldn't shag a bloke. And I certainly couldn't lie there and let one shag me. Even a nice guy like Brian. To be honest, the thought of it turns me over."
Alistair Taylor via Lennon by Tim Riley
John Reid [Elton John's manager and partner] couldn't resist asking John whether the rumors about him and Epstein were true. This was in response to John saying to John Reid, "You're the most intimidating man I've met since Brian Epstein." And so John Reid, never knowingly one to miss an opportunity, said, "Did you ever have sex with Brian?" And John said, "Twice. Once to see what it was like, and once to make sure I didn't like it."
The Search for John Lennon by Lesley-Ann Jones
What about that old rumor that Lennon had sex with Beatles manager Brian Epstein (which was also the subject of the 1991 film, The Hours and The Times)?
Uh, well, the story I was told was a very explicit story, and from that I think they didn’t have it [sex]. But they went to Spain, and when they came back, tons of reporters were asking, ‘Did you do it, did you do it?’ So he said, ‘I did it.’ Isn’t that amazing? But of course he would say that. I’m sure Brian Epstein made a move, yeah.
And Lennon said no to Epstein?
He just didn’t want to do it, I think.
Yoko Ono via The Daily Beast, 2015
John himself said he finally allowed Brian to make love to him “to get it out of the way” [during the trip]. Those who knew John well, who had known him for years, don’t believe it for a moment. John was aggressively heterosexual and had never given a hint that he was anything but. If it had been George, we might have believed it. George could act camp and had many homosexual friends, but John loved to say things to shock, and his sly statement was probably just another in a long line of such provocative statements. In fact, it was more in character for John to taunt Brian with promises during those long hot nights in Barcelona than to succumb. Equally, it was in Brian’s masochistic nature to enjoy being tormented, then perhaps to rush off in search of a young bullfighter. Brian adored bullfighters so much, he ended up sponsoring one. (And I think Brian would have confided in somebody if it had happened.)
Magical Mystery Tours by Tony Bramwell
John told me he had had a one-night stand with Brian, on a holiday with him in Spain, when Brian had invited him out, a few days after the birth of Julian in 1963, leaving Cyn alone. I mentioned this brief holiday in the book, but not what John had alleged had taken place. Partly, I didn't really believe it, though John was daft enough to try almost anything once. John was certainly not homosexual, and this boast, or lie, would have given the wrong impression.
The Beatles: Second Revised Edition by Hunter Davies
Years later, John finally came clean about what had happened [in Spain]: not to anyone who’d been around at the time, but to the unshockable woman with whom he shared the last decade of his life [Yoko Ono]. He said that one night during the trip, Brian had cast aside shyness and scruples and finally come on to him, but that he’d replied, “If you feel like that, go out and find a hustler.” Afterward, he had deliberately fed Pete Shotton the myth of his brief surrender, so that everyone would believe his power over Brian to be absolute.
John Lennon by Philip Norman
My understanding [of the trip] only comes from Brian. I never discussed this with John but I heard that there were lots of discussions about the business of homosexuality and Brian’s homosexuality. But I think it’s wrong to discuss something which is really rather significant when I only know one side of the picture.
Peter Brown via In My Life by Debbie Geller
Brian came away from the vacation brimming with exhilaration, overjoyed that John had opened up to him and poised for something more. He told friends that their time together had been "something to build on" in the months ahead.
The Beatles by Bob Spitz; specific quote via Peter Brown
It was during the same discussion [one where Brian was speaking to Lonnie about his personal life] that he told me that he and John Lennon had been lovers. Now that’s too much for me to take on. We’d never talked about his personal life before, so I left the room.
Lonnie Trimble via In My Life by Debbie Geller
Sincere congratulations on the initial success of "[Do You Want to Know a] Secret"! John and I were knocked out (almost literally with Scotch!) with the news.
Brian Epstein to Billy J Kramer, 6 May 1963, while still in Spain
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