This week it was announced that Warner Bros. has put a movie about Judah Maccabee on hold after writer Joe Eszterhas and producer Mel Gibson got into a nasty exchange—the former eventually penning a 9-page letter to the actor accusing him of hating Jews. Gibson responded to the aforementioned letter with his own, claiming the movie was on hold because he was "extraordinarily disappointed" with Eszterhas's script; he signed off saying: "this should be our last communication." more ›

We know that John Lennon loved to make music and bake bread... but did you know he was also a crazy cat lady at heart? According to Mental Floss, Lennon owned a number of cats throughout his lifetime, starting with his first childhood pet, named Elvis. There is also an adorable story involving a stray he saved, and trips he would make to the local fishmonger to buy treats for it! When he became famous with The Beatles, he would still call in to check on the cat (which he had named Tim). more ›

Yeah, John Lennon wrote some pretty good songs and threw what were basically the coolest parties ever—but he was also just a dude, like the rest of us! And that means he had to do everyday tasks like buy marmalade, get the gas tanks filled for both cars, and wait around for the HBO guy to come between 3 and 5. Of course, unlike us, Lennon likely made the above to-do list (which is being sold for $3,000 at auction) for his personal assistant—why else would he write down, "Tell me about my Hair Dryer?" Unless he really was just like us, and was losing his mind one household chore at a time. more ›

Last weekend Yoko Ono celebrated the late John Lennon's birthday in SoHo, and it was a far cry from the Lennon parties of the past. At this one, Ono was selling "the artwork of John Lennon" to benefit Citymeals-on-Wheels. And now ArtInfo is calling Ono out for selling counterfeit pieces, after collectors who paid thousands of dollars for prints are complaining they were sold "cut and paste mash-ups." more ›

Yoko Ono will briefly depart her digs at the Dakota for a move down to Wooster Street. She's leasing a 10,000-square foot brick building at 76 Wooster Street (between Spring and Broome) for a celebration of what would have been John Lennon's 71st birthday. And you're invited over. more ›

The litigious Yoko Ono is once again trying to protect her late husband's name, by suing a Lennon-themed bar in Scotland. According to NME, Ono has threatened to sue the bar's owner, Mike Craig, for copyright infringement, and her lawyer has already been in touch. more ›

Earlier this week John Lennon's former (and final) assistant making some shocking, and pretty unbelievable claims that the musician was a Republican. He claimed that during his last years Lennon was embarrassed by the lyrics to "Imagine," as well as his prior belief system and radical ways. Now Lennon's former publicist, Eliot Mintz, is telling TMZ that Fred Seaman's declarations are all a lie. more ›

John Lennon may have left his mortal coil more than 30 years ago but his words and music live on. And next year a whole lot more of them will be living in public, as Yoko Ono has consented to the publication of a collection of the singer's correspondence that will include everything from doodles to postcards to actual letters. more ›

At the start of the year, the white two-piece suit which John Lennon wore on the cover of Abbey Road was auctioned off by Connecticut-based Braswell Galleries, and sold for $48,000. But it later turned out that the man who sold the suit owes a lot of back rent for his former Manhattan apartment. And yesterday, a judge ruled that the gallery had to pay more than $21,000 to the landlord of that apartment. "Now he's the one screaming, 'Help, I need somebody,'" the landlord's lawyer Adam Leitman Bailey quipped painfully. more ›

On Bloomberg's radio show yesterday, a caller identifying himself as "John" and speaking in a British accent asked the Mayor what the late John Lennon would have thought of not being able to smoke in Central Park. Because the answer to that question is at all relevant to the debate. Bloomberg simply answered that he'd ask the next available Beatle: "Well, I don't know but we could probably ask Paul McCartney. The next time I see Paul - it's an interesting question. I'll ask him." Nobody seems to care what Ringo thinks of the ban. more ›

A former board president of the famous Dakota is suing the co-op board, claiming that they have entrenched racist and discriminatory practices. Former board president Alphonse Fletcher Jr. says in his suit that he was smeared by board members who were trying to block him from buying a second apartment in the building, which has been home to such luminaries as John Lennon, Leonard Bernstein, Lauren Bacall, Rosie O'Donnell, and Rosemary's demon baby. "Although such conduct by a co-op board on the Upper West Side of Manhattan may seem surprising, this behavior was consistent with the defendants' extensive pattern of hostility toward non-white residents of the building," he claims in the lawsuit. more ›

Recently more of John Lennon's material items were sold off at auction—this time around his famous white suit (as seen on the cover of Abbey Road), and his green 1972 Chrysler station wagon (as seen on the streets of Manhattan). There's just one problem: the man who sold these items owes a lot of back rent for his former Manhattan apartment, and the landlord has come knockin'. According to the AP, the seller's former landlord has sued the gallery that auctioned the suit (for $46K) and wants the proceeds to satisfy a rent debt. more ›

Yoko Ono is certainly sticking to her story: the interview-friendly artist denied her culpability in the break up of the Beatles again in an interview with British rag The Daily Mail this weekend. If the glove doesn't fit, then Yoko is not the culprit: "The Beatles were a group made up of four very complex men, and my small hand could not have broken these men up." more ›

Today is the 30th Anniversary of the murder of John Lennon (here's a look back at that day)—and while you may expect to see fans flocking to Strawberry Fields all day, you may not have expected to hear new words from the man himself. Rolling Stone has just released the last interview with the former Beatle, which was conducted just three days before his final breath was taken. The interview was done by the magazine's Jonathan Cott, and lasted nine hours; while select parts have been used, Cott never transcribed all of the tapes and simply left them in his closet collecting dust. more ›

As pointed out by the LA Times, a recent broadcast on NPR aired tape recordings from an interview between David Sheff and John Lennon that took place over a three-week period in 1980, here in New York City. The tapes have allegedly never been broadcast before, though the transcripts were published.) The interview came out in Playboy, in an issue that hit newsstands on October 6th of that year. more ›

Recently Yoko Ono discussed that whole thing about breaking up The Beatles, with Anderson Cooper on CNN. She told him, "I think I was used as a scapegoat, and it's a very easy scapegoat, you know, Japanese woman." When he asks if she believes it was mostly about sexism and racism, she answers: "sexism, racism, but also just remember the United States and Britain were fighting with Japan in WWII, it was just after that in a way, so I could understand how they felt. [It hurt] in a way, but it was sort of like a distance thing... John and I were so close, and we were totally involved in each other." more ›

Yesterday would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday, and celebrations and tributes took place across the universe. Ex-wife Cynthia Lennon and son Julien unveiled the "Peace and Love" sculpture in his native Liverpool, England. Yoko Ono was joined by son Sean and Ringo Starr (as well as George Harrison’s widow Olivia and son Dhani Harrison, among others) for a performance with the Plastic Ono Band, and to light the Imagine Peace Tower in Reykjavik, Iceland. And in the city, hundreds gathered at the Strawberry Field memorial, across the street from the Dakota apartment building where Lennon and Ono lived for nearly a decade. You can see a video from yesterday below. more ›

In case you were confused by Google putting up their commemorative Lennon doodle a day early, today would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday. And there are tributes to the former Beatle going up all over the world: Yoko Ono, Ringo Starr, Brian Wilson, Run DMC and many, many others put up video tributes to Lennon on YouTube. There are official birthday events happening in diverse locations such as Cleveland, Liverpool, and Reykjavik. In NYC, you can see the Lennon documentary, “John Lennon: A Journey in the Life,” at the Paley Center for Media at w 52nd st, or gather at the Strawberry Fields memorial in Central Park near w 72nd st. Tonight, you can head to Central Park to attend a free screening of the new Lennon-in-NYC documentary, LENNONYC. more ›

The FBI is still messing with John Lennon! The late musician's fingerprints (part of his application for citizenship circa 1976) were about to hit the auction block this Saturday, but the feds seized the card yesterday after an hourlong stand-off, according to the NY Times. The owner of the shop holding the auction, Peter Siegel, said for the past week the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the United States attorney in Manhattan had been asking about the card. A spokesman for the FBI would only say that there was an “investigation into how that item came to be up for auction.” more ›

Judging by all the high quality fan fic going around, John Lennon's birthday must be coming up soon. And PBS has a new documentary of the musical icon, LENNONYC, which focuses on the time in the 1970s when Lennon was semi-retired from music, living a domesticated life living at The Dakota on the Upper West Side with Yoko Ono and son Sean (you can see a clip from it below). The film will run on PBS in November, but because this is Lennon and NYC, Ono announced there will be a special Summerstage premiere on Lennon's actual birthday, Oct. 9. more ›