May Pang
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May Pang or Fung Yee (born October 24, 1950) was the lover of John Lennon for just over a year.
She was the daughter of immigrant Chinese parents living in Harlem in New York. After graduating from high school in New York, she continued on to college but realized after a year she was not happy with her studies. She stumbled upon Apple Records, the same building that she was being interviewed for another job. May was hired as assistant at ABKCO, Allen Klein's management company which represented Apple Records, three former Beatles, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. When the opportunity came to help John and Yoko Ono on a project in Dec. of 1970, May accepted, and flew to England for them on various projects. May's work for John and Yoko led to a permanent stint as their personal assistant, as they moved from England to New York.
In the fall of 1973, during a time when John and Yoko were having marital problems, Yoko ordered that May be both a friend and lover for John, as was common to Oriental custom, otherwise known as concubine, or marital sex substitute. May was taken off guard by this new job duty and rejected the idea but Yoko insisted. And in the end John himself would do the chasing. Yoko may not have considered that they would get emotionally involved. When John decided to fly to Los Angeles he asked May to come along. They lived together, staying in a hotel and a series of rented and borrowed apartments. While in LA, John decided to hook up with Phil Spector to record an album of oldies. Also while in LA John continued to have numerous affairs with other women while drinking to excess and partying hard with his peers.
May lived with John from late 1973 until the first weeks of 1975, and was employed and on the payroll working during the day on the business end of his recording projects (including albums for Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr as well as John's Mind Games, Rock 'N' Roll and his #1 album Walls & Bridges. In her book, Loving John, May related how John worked in his studio from mid morning to evening as he continued to create.
In early summer 1974, while John was working on Walls and Bridges, the couple returned to New York City and moved into a penthouse apartment. Walls and Bridges features May's voice whispering John's name as well as singing background with John and 2 other singers on the song "#9 Dream," though Yoko Ono later created a video in which Ono lipsyncs May's vocals.
Despite rumors, John and May saw Yoko from time to time as well as her daily phone calls to them during the separation. By early 1975, John and Yoko had decided to reconcile and their separation ended. Shortly afterwards, Yoko became pregnant with Sean Ono Lennon and John remained in the Dakota with Yoko henceforth. May reiterates what she said in her 1983 book Loving John... "the official announcement said we ended in early '75 but continued to see each other secretly. A small community of John and May's friends knew of their clandestine visits with each other. This has come to light in the recent books written by Larry Kane, Robert Rosen, Cynthia Lennon and Tony Bramwell.
She later married Record producer Tony Visconti, with whom she had two children Sebastian and Lara. May Pang is currently divorced and living with her children in New York. She creates an original line of Feng Shui jewelry available on her website.
May Pang, like Yoko Ono, has taken quite a beating from both the media and Beatle fans. Some sources claim she was simply a young girl who was taken advantage of by both John and Yoko, though others have noticed that she re-tells different versions of her story in order to stay in the news and over-inflate her importance in Lennon's life.