a missing daughter, a murdered husband and an annulled wedding

“Yoko Ono is to blame for everything,” the band Def Con Dos sang in 1995. And it was not only the irreverent title of a Spanish rock song, but the summary of the curse that has haunted Yoko Ono for six decades. To summarize, the Japanese multidisciplinary artist went to music in the 70s what Meghan Markle is to the monarchy today. Swap the Beatles for the Windsors and voilà. A woman of another race, with other principles, accused of manipulating ‘Prince’ John Lennon and ‘taking him away from his family’ and deteriorating the institution. She is the target of xenophobic, racist, and sexist insults, she is branded as a weed, opportunist, money-grubber, pamphleteer, and hypocrite with her messages of peace and equality, in addition to being ignored in her artistic career. “I’ve been doing things that nobody talks about for decades,” I would say in 2015.

Now that she turns 90 this Saturday, it seems more hurtful that she has been 43 referred to only as the widow of John Lennon. But it also seems that her artistic prestige is better than ever: in the last 15 years she has seen her songs top dance charts in the United States, how MoMA finally dedicated her a monographic exhibition and how they finally credited her as co-author of ‘Imagine’. In social networks, he has fitted in quite well and has 4.2 million followers on Twitter, something that few nonagenarians can say, and speaking of millions, in this case dollars, he has turned the 200 that John Lennon left him in 1980 into 700 today according to Celebritynetworth.com. These days, in addition, CBS has announced that it is preparing a documentary titled ‘Daytime Revolution‘, centered on the week in 1972 in which she and John Lennon took control of the most watched television space of the moment, ‘The Mike Douglas Show’, and filled it with artistically and politically revolutionary ideas.

But apart from his recognition as an artist, perhaps the most unfair thing about the simplification of his figure happens when looking at his personal life. There is a lot to tell before and after John Lennon appeared in her life and married her in 1969 (in Gibraltar, by the way). Just as there is much more tragedy than the murder of the musical legend on December 8, 1980 in front of the Dakota building in New York, which was and is his residence today (“it was my only home with him, I don’t want to leave ”, once told Jonathan Ross). As summed up three years ago by his close friend, the journalist Elliot Mintz, “In these 87 years, Yoko has lived 400”.

Born in Tokyo in 1933 into what was undoubtedly a well-to-do family (the daughter of an artist and a banker, and with an adoptive grandfather of samurai tradition), she had an exquisite upbringing between Japan and the United States that was cut short by World War II. The war conflict threw them all into famine and his father, specifically, into a prisoner of war camp in Saigon. First stick.

Once her status was restored, the young Yoko became a classmate of Akihito, the future emperor of Japan, and after returning to New York she ended up secretly marrying him. Japanese avant-garde musician Toshi Ichiyanagi (who died, by the way, in October of last year). The year was 1956, she was 23 years old and their relationship, which lasted six, ended in divorce. Later she entered a psychiatric institution in Japan for chronic depression.

But the biggest heartbreak of her life came with her next husband, the jazz musician and film producer Anthony Cox. He was one of the promoters of her being discharged from the mental health center where she was and they married so quickly that the marriage was initially annulled, since her divorce with Ichiyanagi had not been done. still cash. By the time she gave him the definitive ‘yes, I want’ in 1963, however, the worst was yet to come. At that second ceremony, Yoko Ono was seven months pregnant with her first child, Kyoko Chan Cox, but marital problems soon began, culminating in a fierce custody battle for the child.

Cox’s fear that the fame of John Lennon (who had already entered the scene) would take him away from his daughter made him practically deny the little girl’s contact with her mother. This led Yoko and John to kidnap Kyoko in Mallorca for a few days -an episode portrayed in a Spanish short film titled with the name of the girl- and Cox took over the full custody in 1971, protected by the mother’s drug use, already a victim of hate media by then. Not content with that, Cox legally changed her daughter’s name (hereafter Ruth Holman) and enrolled her in a Christian sect in Iowa.

Not all the money, time and resources, not even the song dedicated to her -titled ‘Don’t Worry, Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking For Her Hand In The Snow)’– got Yoko to meet her daughter again, causing her a unimaginable pain and anguish. It seems cruel that it was the same time in which the media only talked about opportunistic goings-on and tricks on the part of the artist.

The two great traumas of his life overlapped when the ex-Beatle was assassinated and Yoko Ono received a telegram from her daughter and her husband offering their condolences, but without clarifying his whereabouts. In 1986, Yoko Ono (who also took refuge in her inseparable relationship with the son she had with Lennon, Sean) closed his search with an open letter to his daughter. “If you ever want to get in touch with me, you should know that I would love to and that I deeply want to hear from you. But you shouldn’t feel guilty if you decide not to contact me. You have my respect, love and support forever.” wrote.

Twelve years later, in 1998, Kyoko finally decided to get back in touch, after having been the mother of her daughter Emi and reflecting on what happened since adulthood. Yoko forgave her without rancor and would celebrate the arrival of her second grandchild in 2000. But the formerly slandered of her as a parasite of her husbands never again thought if she wants to marry. A relatively happy ending for those who, despite everything, do not lose faith in humanity, in art, in love and in nature. ‘I’m a witch’, was how he titled her album in 2006. “but a good witch”, he then clarified to the Spanish journalist Carlos del Amo.

This is how he shows it every day on his social networks, where he continues to send inspiring messages with humor and where he has decided to celebrate his 90th birthday by a call to people to write messages of good wishes and, for each one received, plant a tree.

“Yoko Ono is to blame for everything,” the band Def Con Dos sang in 1995. And it was not only the irreverent title of a Spanish rock song, but the summary of the curse that has haunted Yoko Ono for six decades. To summarize, the Japanese multidisciplinary artist went to music in the 70s what Meghan Markle is to the monarchy today. Swap the Beatles for the Windsors and voilà. A woman of another race, with other principles, accused of manipulating ‘Prince’ John Lennon and ‘taking him away from his family’ and deteriorating the institution. She is the target of xenophobic, racist and sexist insults, she is branded as a wench, an opportunist, a profiteer, a pamphleteer and a hypocrite with her messages of peace and equality, in addition to being ignored in her artistic career. “I’ve been doing things that nobody talks about for decades,” I would say in 2015.