John Lennon has passed into history as one of the most creative minds walking on this planet. The former Beatle and icon of rock music had many talents, but apparently, when it came to his personality, we can just say he wasn’t the most amiable person in the world.
Lennon was known for having a volatile temper and reckless personality, and there have been endless testimonies of him losing his mind whenever things didn’t go out as planned or simply if he wasn’t in the mood for something. Things would go from quarreling at some bar to actually damaging a priceless painting just because he was feeling blue.
The story goes like this. It was the seventies; John Lennon had just broken up with The Beatles and was now living in New York following a successful solo career. However, things weren’t going that well in the heart of the hopeless romantic musician and he was going through what became an 18-month separation from his famous wife and love Yoko Ono.
As you can imagine, Lennon wasn’t at his best. As a matter of fact, this was one of his darkest periods sinking him into a vortex of destruction. But going back to the story. Back then, Hugh Hefner, who happened to be a huge Beatles fan, hosted three lavish movie nights a week at his iconic Playboy Mansion. While Fridays and Saturdays were reserved for classics, Sundays were dedicated to new releases and thus, the mansion would receive tons of celebrities. Enter John Lennon.
The rock legend arrived in the afternoon at the mansion right on time for the 5:30 buffet dinner. According to Hefner and witnesses of the incident, he wasn’t looking quite well. After watching the movie projected at 7 sharp, the guests enjoyed some drinks and thus havoc ensued. The inebriated Beatle took one of Hefner’s original Matisse paintings from the wall and burnt the priceless painting with his cigarette butt.
While it is unknown which Henri Matisse painting suffered the reckless behavior of the music legend, many seem to note it might’ve been his 1944 Icarus belonging to his Jazz Book series. But we’ll go back to it a bit later. After seeing Lennon destroying a valuable artwork, Hef’s friends were furious and were about to resort to violence towards him.
According to Hefner, he didn’t witness the incident directly but heard the commotion. He later declared that he understood Lennon who “had been drinking.” He added that he “was a huge fan. He was under a tremendous amount of pressure, very inappropriate pressure, you know, from the government. They were strange times. And Lennon was one of my heroes.”
Although Hefner was upset about his painting being defaced right at his house, he was empathic to Lennon and let the incident pass. According to stories, he wasn’t banned from the mansion and would return a couple of times more in the couple following years before his tragic death.
Regarding the painting. There are two versions of the story. Some claim that Hefner had the Matisse artwork restored and had it exhibited at his mansion for many years. The other version is that the painting was kept just as it was with the cigarette burn and all giving now more value. Now, either way, it seems improbable that the painting that John Lennon defaced was Henri Matisse’s Icarus since that painting rests at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh and it doesn’t show any strange mark either of being restored or burnt. However, whatever the picture may be, it is probably worth many millions more now,