'The Lost Weekend:' Photos of John Lennon through the eyes of a former girlfriend

The breakup of the Beatles in 1970 was not the end of John Lennon's music career.

It was a turning point that May Pang, a then 19-year-old from East Harlem, got to witness when she started working for Lennon and Yoko Ono late that year. Pang said her relationship with the English singer, songwriter, and musician changed in 1973 when they started dating.

She was with him during his infamous "Lost Weekend", a highly creative time for Lennon that spanned 18 months. Pang, with her camera, was able to capture rare and candid photographs of him that most fans have never seen until now. She started traveling with her private collection, popping up at galleries across the country. The exhibit is titled The Lost Weekend: The Photography of May Pang. During her two-day stop in Tulsa, I interviewed her to learn some of the stories behind the photographs.

Q: What made you want to start taking these photos of John?

A: "I just had a passion for photography, and that is what it was really about. I could have taken, like I said, thousands of these photos but I only wanted to take photos that looked interesting as a setting, it was not like I wanted to be intrusive or set out to take all these and then sell them later; it had nothing to do with that. They were under my bed in storage for years."

Q: How did he feel about you taking pictures of him?

A: "One day he asked to see the photos and I was nervous, even though I was living with him, because I did not know what he would say. He was looking at them and goes 'it is okay, I like your eye' and he goes 'you can carry on'."

Q: What time period were most of these photos taken?

A: "It was the fall of 1973 to the beginning of 1975. The majority is 1974 because there was so much going on. He was seeing so many of his friends and meeting new friends, everybody from David Bowie, to Elton John, to getting together again with his brothers, I would say, ya know George and Ringo and Paul."

Q: Why share these photos now, after all these years?

A: "I think people need to understand that time period. They have a whole misconception. There is a myth going on about that time that John was always drunk, but meanwhile, when you do a deep dive into it, you find out that was his most creative period of his whole solo career. We did not have drinks at home at night, and he did not do it; it is only when he was out with the boys and they would say 'let's go and have fun' that he drank."

Q: How would you describe your relationship with John at the time?

A: "I did not tell anybody. It was just one of those that I just kept under wraps for a while, and people would ask 'why don't you go out and say things,' and I say there is one star in the family, and it is him, it is not me. I did not mind being in the background."

Q: Why did you decide to do the documentary The Lost Weekend: A Love Story?

A: "It tells the story. It tells about John and I. It takes that period in, and I think people will get a better idea of what happened with us, as opposed to everybody else telling my story, and that is the reason why I did it."

The documentary debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2022 and is now available on streaming services like Amazon Prime and Apple TV.

Pang's photographs of John Lennon will be on display and available for purchase at Joseph Gierek Fine Art on Tuesday, April 29, and Wednesday, April 30, from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. The gallery is at 1342 E 11th Street along Route 66 in Tulsa.