Lennon was 40 years old when he was fatally shot on Dec. 8, 1980
Credit: Vinnie Zuffante/Getty
NEED TO KNOW
- A new documentary is offering a closer look at the final interview given by John Lennon
- Lennon was interviewed by San Francisco radio station KFRC on Dec. 8, 1980 — just a few hours before he was murdered
- Lennon was 40 years old when he was fatally shot the same day
A new documentary is offering a closer look at the final interview given by John Lennon — just hours before his murder.
John Lennon: The Last Interview, from director Steven Soderbergh, details Lennon's final interview, given to San Francisco radio station KFRC from out of his and wife Yoko Ono's apartment on Dec. 8, 1980. The interview was meant to focus on Double Fantasy, Lennon's comeback album recorded with Ono and released three weeks prior.
According to The Guardian, Lennon's final interviewers were KFRC's Dave Sholin, Laurie Kaye and Ron Hummel who, on their way out of the musician's Manhattan building, The Dakota, "were accosted by a creepy stalker-fan; in attempt to calm the man down, Kaye gave him a brand new copy of John and Yoko's new album … This sinister man was Lennon's future murderer who got him to sign an album — perhaps this very album — and later shot him dead."
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Credit: Helmut Reiss/United Archives via Getty
Per Variety, Soderbergh utilizes many never-before-seen photographs of both Lennon and his wife, as well as "a handful of fantasy images created by AI" in the documentary, which made its debut at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, May 16.
Hours prior to giving the interview, Lennon and Ono posed for a series of now-iconic photographs by Annie Leibovitz, who photographed the couple in their Manhattan apartment.
Hours after the interview, Lennon would be shot twice in the back and twice in the shoulder with a .38-caliber pistol outside of that same New York City apartment. The Washington Post reported that N.Y.C.'s medical examiner, Dr. Elliot Gross, attributed Lennon's death to “massive hemorrhaging and shock” caused by the wounds. He was 40 years old.
According to the autopsy, two bullets struck Lennon's left lung before exiting his chest. One bullet that entered through his shoulder hit his left arm bone, while the other punctured his left lung before becoming lodged in his neck.
Shortly after Lennon was shot, his killer, Mark David Chapman, confessed at the scene of the crime. He later told a parole board that he was a Beatles fan “seeking fame.”
"I knew what I was doing, and I knew it was evil,” he said in September 2022. “I knew it was wrong, but I wanted the fame so much that I was willing to give everything and take a human life."
Lennon was survived by his wife, and two sons, Julian and Sean Lennon.
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