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We All Shine On: John, Yoko, and Me
A personal and revealing look at the last ten years of John Lennon’s life and his partnership with Yoko Ono, written by the friend who knew them best, publicist and music industry insider Elliot Mintz. Elliot Mintz spent his life working with some of the biggest names in show business, but perhaps the most important and influential partnership he had was his work and close friendship with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. In his memoir, We All Shine On, Mintz finally tells the story of their relationship, which has spanned more than fifty years and continues to this day. Through beautifully written chapters that are personal, revealing, and full of intriguing details, Mintz transports readers from his first interview with Yoko in 1971, through the years that he supported the couple both personally and professionally through creative highs, relationship and private challenges, fascinating interactions with the other former Beatles, and the happiest moments of their lives together, Sean Lennon’s birth and childhood. And, of course, Elliot was by Yoko’s side in the days, weeks, and months after John’s murder, when Elliot eventually became the official spokesperson of the Lennon estate. Perfect for Beatles fans and music lovers, this book will provide an intimate and revealing portrait of John and Yoko as people, partners, and friends, and most of all, celebrate the friendship that John, Yoko, and Elliot shared for so long.
304 pages, Hardcover
Published October 22, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 123 reviews
October 2, 2025
Such an interesting memoir, told with so much compassion and honesty. Loved it.
January 25, 2025
"Memory is a curious thing. Even today, all these years later, I can vividly recall John [Lennon's] voice on the phone - his lilting Liverpool accent, the silly dialects he would sometimes put on when he was feeling happy, his clenched tone when he was not - as if I'd hung up with him only minutes ago." -- on page 83
I first recall hearing of author Mintz - or, rather, make that HEARD him - when he hosted a weekly syndicated radio series called The Lost Lennon Tapes some thirty-five years ago. (It was aired on Philadelphia's then-nascent but now dearly-departed classic rock station WYSP-FM every Sunday morning, and I listened to it religiously after church - pun intended, in my best Lennonesque wit - during my high school years.) Since that was the pre-Internet era of having information immediately at one's fingertips, I sort of wondered how Mintz had such an inside line on the late John Lennon. I later learned he was a friend / companion / major domo of sorts to Lennon and wife Yoko Ono after they had moved to New York City in 1971. After appearances in Beatles- and/or Lennon-related documentaries, and on the eve of his 80th birthday, Mintz has finally authored a memoir recalling his near-decade worth of experiences with the Lennon / Ono duo in the lively We All Shine On. It was a surprisingly candid work, with Mintz detailing his segue from popular interviewer on the Los Angeles talk radio circuit in the late 60's (how he first 'met' them via long-distance phone calls to his show) to having a front row seat to the celebrity couple's life during the eventful 70's. I would argue that the duo were simultaneously very open about their lives yet also guarded at the same time about certain aspects, so Mintz's book was often an illuminating and nimble narrative. It's neither a puff piece nor cantankerous tell-all, but a seemingly honest and usually interesting read for Lennon's legion of fans.
I first recall hearing of author Mintz - or, rather, make that HEARD him - when he hosted a weekly syndicated radio series called The Lost Lennon Tapes some thirty-five years ago. (It was aired on Philadelphia's then-nascent but now dearly-departed classic rock station WYSP-FM every Sunday morning, and I listened to it religiously after church - pun intended, in my best Lennonesque wit - during my high school years.) Since that was the pre-Internet era of having information immediately at one's fingertips, I sort of wondered how Mintz had such an inside line on the late John Lennon. I later learned he was a friend / companion / major domo of sorts to Lennon and wife Yoko Ono after they had moved to New York City in 1971. After appearances in Beatles- and/or Lennon-related documentaries, and on the eve of his 80th birthday, Mintz has finally authored a memoir recalling his near-decade worth of experiences with the Lennon / Ono duo in the lively We All Shine On. It was a surprisingly candid work, with Mintz detailing his segue from popular interviewer on the Los Angeles talk radio circuit in the late 60's (how he first 'met' them via long-distance phone calls to his show) to having a front row seat to the celebrity couple's life during the eventful 70's. I would argue that the duo were simultaneously very open about their lives yet also guarded at the same time about certain aspects, so Mintz's book was often an illuminating and nimble narrative. It's neither a puff piece nor cantankerous tell-all, but a seemingly honest and usually interesting read for Lennon's legion of fans.
September 29, 2025
A trip down memory lane that captures the essence of an era when rock 'n' roll was more than just music—it was a way of life. Mintz, a former radio personality, recounts his serendipitous journey from a casual acquaintance to a trusted confidant of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The story kicks off with Mintz's initial encounter with Ono, which quickly morphs into a deep, albeit unconventional relationship involving Lennon. Mintz's portrayal of their bond is both candid and affectionate, capturing the eccentricities and complexities of living alongside such influential figures, stepping into a Strawberry Fields Forever dream, with moments that feel as surreal as Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
Packing anecdotes that strip away the myth and media sensationalism surrounding Lennon and Ono, Mintz doesn't shy away from revealing Lennon's darker moments, including his battles with substance abuse and his volatile temperament. Yet, he balances these revelations with tales of Lennon's childlike wonder and creative genius. Ono, on the other hand, emerges as a figure of resilience and mystery, navigating the challenges of fame with a mix of generosity and guardedness. Mintz's writing is engaging and reflective, offering readers a nuanced perspective on the couple's private lives.
What makes this memoir a real gas is Mintz's knack for mixing personal vibes with the broader scene. His story isn't just a blow-by-blow of events but a far-out meditation on the nature of celebrity and the quirks of relationships. The memoir's heavy conclusion, detailing the aftermath of Lennon's tragic exit, underscores the deep groove the couple left on Mintz's life. Whether you're a die-hard Beatles fan or just curious about the fame game, Mintz's memoir is a groovy read that shines a light on the enigmatic world of John and Yoko. A day in the life of a strange journey that leaves you pondering the mind games of fame.
I listened to the audiobook, which was read with candor and intimacy by the author. I recommend you do so as well. I am certain you will dig it too.
Packing anecdotes that strip away the myth and media sensationalism surrounding Lennon and Ono, Mintz doesn't shy away from revealing Lennon's darker moments, including his battles with substance abuse and his volatile temperament. Yet, he balances these revelations with tales of Lennon's childlike wonder and creative genius. Ono, on the other hand, emerges as a figure of resilience and mystery, navigating the challenges of fame with a mix of generosity and guardedness. Mintz's writing is engaging and reflective, offering readers a nuanced perspective on the couple's private lives.
What makes this memoir a real gas is Mintz's knack for mixing personal vibes with the broader scene. His story isn't just a blow-by-blow of events but a far-out meditation on the nature of celebrity and the quirks of relationships. The memoir's heavy conclusion, detailing the aftermath of Lennon's tragic exit, underscores the deep groove the couple left on Mintz's life. Whether you're a die-hard Beatles fan or just curious about the fame game, Mintz's memoir is a groovy read that shines a light on the enigmatic world of John and Yoko. A day in the life of a strange journey that leaves you pondering the mind games of fame.
I listened to the audiobook, which was read with candor and intimacy by the author. I recommend you do so as well. I am certain you will dig it too.
November 3, 2024
I've been aware of Elliot Mintz since John Lennon's assassination in December 1980, as Mintz stepped forward as the Lennon's publicist at that point. I would occasionally see him in documentaries about the Lennons or read about him in Beatles/Lennon related books, since he was such an insider. He was someone that was implicitly trusted by the Lennons. So when I saw this memoir from Mintz, I jumped at the chance to read it. Honestly, I was very surprised he was writing it, with Yoko Ono still alive (but in her 90s, feeble, and tucked away somewhere unseen) and of course John and Yoko's son Sean Lennon. I have to think that they consented to him writing this since he was such a part of the family. Also, after having read it, he didn't do a hatchet job ala the late author Albert Goldman. Much like the way Mintz functioned as the Lennons' publicist, he shared his experiences with the Lennons in an honest and classy way. I have no doubt that he could have written multiple volumes of memoirs on the Lennons with all that he knows, and unleash a no holds barred assault with unattractive behavior that every human being has, but Mintz found a way to tell his unique life story with the Lennons, giving fans some new kernels of information to covet, while still keeping his loyalty to the Lennon family.
Mintz tells the story of how he connected with Yoko Ono Lennon after playing her new album "Fly" on his overnight radio show in LA back in the early seventies. Afterwards, he invited her to do a phone interview- which she greatly appreciated- since other interviewers focused mostly on her husband John. A thank you call to Elliot launched a whole new relationship of daily hours long phone calls from Yoko- and later- also from John. Elliot wound up having to install a separate phone line at home just for their calls. This spearheaded a decades long friendship, probably the closest I've ever heard of with the Lennons. Directly following John's murder, Elliot was one of the only people Yoko could trust, as other employees started pilfering John's belongings to make money, writing books, and this only added to the devastation Yoko had to deal with. She tasked Elliot with taking inventory of all John's belongings after his death. As he slogged along in this incredibly poignant task, opening one closet revealed John's Sargent Pepper uniform as well as the suit he wore when The Beatles first performed on the Ed Sullivan Show. This is an interesting and moving memoir which uncovers yet another shaft of light into the subject of John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
Mintz tells the story of how he connected with Yoko Ono Lennon after playing her new album "Fly" on his overnight radio show in LA back in the early seventies. Afterwards, he invited her to do a phone interview- which she greatly appreciated- since other interviewers focused mostly on her husband John. A thank you call to Elliot launched a whole new relationship of daily hours long phone calls from Yoko- and later- also from John. Elliot wound up having to install a separate phone line at home just for their calls. This spearheaded a decades long friendship, probably the closest I've ever heard of with the Lennons. Directly following John's murder, Elliot was one of the only people Yoko could trust, as other employees started pilfering John's belongings to make money, writing books, and this only added to the devastation Yoko had to deal with. She tasked Elliot with taking inventory of all John's belongings after his death. As he slogged along in this incredibly poignant task, opening one closet revealed John's Sargent Pepper uniform as well as the suit he wore when The Beatles first performed on the Ed Sullivan Show. This is an interesting and moving memoir which uncovers yet another shaft of light into the subject of John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
November 2, 2024
ARC for review. Published October 22, 2024.
Strong 4+ stars for this one.
Mintz was a close friend of John Lennon and Yoko Ono during their Dakota years and he shares a bit of that life. He says he was “consumed” by them for most of a decade and if his story is true this was the type of fealty they demanded from the hose they considered their friends…although I’m not quite sure that “friend” is exactly the right term to use here. Month had a red light in his bedroom so he wouldn’t miss one of their calls, regardless of the time. That sounds more like an employee to me.
Anyway, the book offered an interesting look at a short period in the couple’s life up to and including John’s death. I’m not a super fan yet I found it fascinating.
Strong 4+ stars for this one.
Mintz was a close friend of John Lennon and Yoko Ono during their Dakota years and he shares a bit of that life. He says he was “consumed” by them for most of a decade and if his story is true this was the type of fealty they demanded from the hose they considered their friends…although I’m not quite sure that “friend” is exactly the right term to use here. Month had a red light in his bedroom so he wouldn’t miss one of their calls, regardless of the time. That sounds more like an employee to me.
Anyway, the book offered an interesting look at a short period in the couple’s life up to and including John’s death. I’m not a super fan yet I found it fascinating.
January 23, 2025
Unlike other Beatles books.(I've researched over 600, saw Yoko and Sean perform small club, met 1st wife Cynthia and gf May Pang. Mintz was John and Yoko's closest confidant during Dakota years. Whole different view of them, eccentric, sometimes contradictory human beings, in their own little world. Let him into their inner sanctum calling him daily, hours long conversations, visiting, travelling with them. They confide in him, he put his life on hold to answer their beck and call;he laments not having his own family. I do question though: he says John only mentioned May once in their conversations, despite her being his companion for 18 months during California "lost weekend" Yoko separation(May claims she continued to see John as late as '77). Mintz' witnessing of Paul and Linda's awkward Xmas visit to to Dakota is revealing. Of course, he's not going to say anything really bad about John and Yoko. Recommended, for a unique view of two different artists and personalities.
November 23, 2024
What a gift Elliot Mintz has given John Lennon and The Beatles fans with his memoir, WE ALL SHINE ON. There have been many books written about Lennon/The Beatles over the years and decades, and I’ve read a lot of them. And though there are a lot of good ones out there, well researched and including quotes from the key players, this one feels personal—because it is. Mintz tells us, the readers, stories of and conversations with his close friends, who just happened to be John Lennon and Yoko Ono. He takes us into their world, and his descriptions of his many late-night phone conversations really show them as human beings and not just larger than life celebrities that they were (and still are). As cliché as it is to say, Mintz really brings John to life. For example, there is a funny story about Mintz letting John (a notoriously bad driver) drive his car around an empty McDonald’s parking lot that’s not to be missed.
The memoir covers the years 1971 to 1981, and includes the time John spent in LA during his 18-month long “Lost Weekend,” his separation from Yoko. Mintz, who lives in LA, was asked by Yoko to keep John safe, which was a tall task. John, of course, fell in with a crowd of partiers like Harry Nilsson, Keith Moon, etc, and basically hit rock bottom. Though at the same time somehow managed to record his “Rock and Roll” album of cover songs, produced by Phil Spector. Mintz witnessed some of these legendary (i.e. crazy) recording sessions first-hand, and this is what makes the book such a standout: a first-hand account by someone who was not only there, but was also a trusted friend of the Lennons. Mintz also brings the reader into The Dakota, the Lennon’s home, and the late-night bull sessions, sitting in the kitchen, or the bedroom, Mintz in his preferred wicker chair. And of course, at the end, when Mintz arrives at The Dakota after Lennon’s death, to comfort and help Yoko any way he can.
I’ve heard Mintz in recent interviews make the joke that he decided to write the book now, otherwise people would soon need a Ouija board to interview him. He makes a good point. Soon people from that era, who knew The Beatles and witnessed or were part of the whole whirlwind, will no longer be with us. Paul and Ringo have given hundreds of interviews, but will they ever write their own memoirs? Pete Best could give some fresh insights into the early days too.
Thank you Elliot Mintz, for putting these stories and insights down on paper.
The memoir covers the years 1971 to 1981, and includes the time John spent in LA during his 18-month long “Lost Weekend,” his separation from Yoko. Mintz, who lives in LA, was asked by Yoko to keep John safe, which was a tall task. John, of course, fell in with a crowd of partiers like Harry Nilsson, Keith Moon, etc, and basically hit rock bottom. Though at the same time somehow managed to record his “Rock and Roll” album of cover songs, produced by Phil Spector. Mintz witnessed some of these legendary (i.e. crazy) recording sessions first-hand, and this is what makes the book such a standout: a first-hand account by someone who was not only there, but was also a trusted friend of the Lennons. Mintz also brings the reader into The Dakota, the Lennon’s home, and the late-night bull sessions, sitting in the kitchen, or the bedroom, Mintz in his preferred wicker chair. And of course, at the end, when Mintz arrives at The Dakota after Lennon’s death, to comfort and help Yoko any way he can.
I’ve heard Mintz in recent interviews make the joke that he decided to write the book now, otherwise people would soon need a Ouija board to interview him. He makes a good point. Soon people from that era, who knew The Beatles and witnessed or were part of the whole whirlwind, will no longer be with us. Paul and Ringo have given hundreds of interviews, but will they ever write their own memoirs? Pete Best could give some fresh insights into the early days too.
Thank you Elliot Mintz, for putting these stories and insights down on paper.
December 28, 2024
Was it a millionaire who said, "Imagine no possessions"? - Elvis Costello, "The Other Side of Summer"
I already knew that John Lennon was no angel, but this brief memoir by John & Yoko's friend/assistant/babysitter portrays the Clever Beatle as a hapless narcissist who expected Mintz to be available 24/7 for jobs ranging from menial to impossible. Yoko was more capable but equally demanding, and obsessed with using psychics and numerology to guide her actions. In his nine year career as the Lennon-Ono's lackey, Mintz was asked to: find a NYC doctor to give the couple weight-loss injections (from LA); hire a PI to find a potential business partner's birth date so Yoko could vet him with her astrologist; give the millionaire Beatle a few hundo so he could gamble in Vegas; and accompany John on a nighttime spree to stop him from drinking, and report back on his behavior to Mother/Yoko. Mintz eventually had an extra phone line installed in his LA house so he would never miss a call from his overlords...I mean, friends.
The book is competently written, but Mintz engages in a LOT of name dropping, implying that his encounters with scores of celebrities were related to some personal magic, instead of being the natural result of hanging out with two of the most famous people in the world. He alludes to being estranged from his biological family, with John & Yoko serving as surrogate parents, but other than mentioning a few women (mostly nameless) that he slept with, he basically had no life outside of addressing their every whim.
I am somewhat regretful that I read this, but YMMV if you're not bothered by the warning to "never meet your heroes."
I already knew that John Lennon was no angel, but this brief memoir by John & Yoko's friend/assistant/babysitter portrays the Clever Beatle as a hapless narcissist who expected Mintz to be available 24/7 for jobs ranging from menial to impossible. Yoko was more capable but equally demanding, and obsessed with using psychics and numerology to guide her actions. In his nine year career as the Lennon-Ono's lackey, Mintz was asked to: find a NYC doctor to give the couple weight-loss injections (from LA); hire a PI to find a potential business partner's birth date so Yoko could vet him with her astrologist; give the millionaire Beatle a few hundo so he could gamble in Vegas; and accompany John on a nighttime spree to stop him from drinking, and report back on his behavior to Mother/Yoko. Mintz eventually had an extra phone line installed in his LA house so he would never miss a call from his overlords...I mean, friends.
The book is competently written, but Mintz engages in a LOT of name dropping, implying that his encounters with scores of celebrities were related to some personal magic, instead of being the natural result of hanging out with two of the most famous people in the world. He alludes to being estranged from his biological family, with John & Yoko serving as surrogate parents, but other than mentioning a few women (mostly nameless) that he slept with, he basically had no life outside of addressing their every whim.
I am somewhat regretful that I read this, but YMMV if you're not bothered by the warning to "never meet your heroes."
September 7, 2025
I listened on Audible and Elliot's narration of 'We All Shine On' is absolutely perfect. His voice is so calm and engaging, and it truly feels like you're sitting with him, hearing these incredible stories directly from the source and you can hear the fondness in his voice that he had for John and Yoko. This is more than just a book, it's a deeply personal memoir and it's so clear that Elliot had a deep and genuine friendship with them, and his memories are shared with such honesty and respect.
August 24, 2025
A very sincere and heartfelt portrait of John and Yoko as told by their closest friend and confidant Elliot Mintz who was an LA DJ, journalist and radio interviewer who became spokesmen for the family. Mintz relates his travels, trials, and tribulations in the 1970’s with Lennon and Ono and despite some pretty rough accounts it still felt to me like he was holding back but I could be wrong.
I first heard of Mintz with his weekly radio program The Lost Lennon Tapes which I listened to religiously on Sunday nights in the late 1980’s finding it fascinating to hear interviews, clips, demos, and song takes by John Lennon.
I first heard of Mintz with his weekly radio program The Lost Lennon Tapes which I listened to religiously on Sunday nights in the late 1980’s finding it fascinating to hear interviews, clips, demos, and song takes by John Lennon.
January 12, 2025
This isn’t a spicy tell-all, more a nostalgic trip down memory lane for a long-time associate of the Lennons. No big revelations but good if you’re curious what being John Lennon’s friend might be like. This is a sympathetic portrayal but sometimes they come across as Michael Jackson weird (amusingly they were antivax before it was cool).
Highlights include his trip to Japan with John, which almost felt like a buddy comedy.
Highlights include his trip to Japan with John, which almost felt like a buddy comedy.
February 5, 2025
The book I just finished reading offered the reader a glimpse into the world of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. It takes the reader from 1971 to 1980 and gives people a look into their lives and the friends in which they made along the way
April 26, 2025
Quite the read!
October 10, 2024
Thank you so much to @duttonbooks for sending me a copy of WE ALL SHINE ON: JOHN, YOKO, AND ME by Elliot Mintz which goes on sale Tuesday, October 22. I received the book Monday and immediately started reading it. If you are a Beatles or John Lennon fan, you will want to add this to your TBR!
Elliot Mintz was a radio host in the early 1970s, and after he listened to one of Yoko Ono’s albums, scheduled her for an interview. He was careful not to ask her about John Lennon, focusing on her own artwork instead. The next day, Yoko called him to thank him. That began a friendship with Yoko that is ostensibly still ongoing, and a ten-year friendship with John that is the subject of the memoir. Because the emphasis is on the Ono-Lennons in the 1970s, the other Beatles are only mentioned in passing, and I thought that was a very sound choice for the book.
I’ve read books about the Beatles and biographies of John Lennon, and I found this to be refreshingly new. While it doesn’t change anything material I knew about or thought of Lennon, Mintz was so close to Yoko and John that his stories are told with details and observations only an intimate friend can relay.
Mintz asserts that because he interviewed so many famous people on his show, he was immune to being starstruck and always treated John and Yoko as “just people.” (In support, he relates instances when he gave John some hard and frank truths!) In response, they were comfortable with him and trusted him, but it required sacrifice on his part. He spent hours each day in conversation with either/both of them, and in many ways his world revolved around them. He even had a separate line installed in his house just for them, and when it rang, a red light flashed in his bedroom (on his own initiative, not their request). It’s hard to imagine this isn’t the behavior of a starstruck apostle. In exchange for his devotion, he received access to the inner sanctum and what seems to be genuine love and friendship from John and Yoko.
I couldn’t help but wonder if I would or could ever table my own life for someone(s)!
I thought the writing of the memoir solid, even elegant, though I could have done without a few Beatle lyrics that were included to underline points. Sometimes authors of memoirs discuss their process, such as if they consult a diary or triangulate with people who were familiar with events. Here, Mintz doesn’t provide that information, nor does he reveal if anyone (i.e., Yoko or Sean) read the manuscript before publication. Unlike most memoirs, it has an index, though. Not criticisms, just observations!
Elliot Mintz was a radio host in the early 1970s, and after he listened to one of Yoko Ono’s albums, scheduled her for an interview. He was careful not to ask her about John Lennon, focusing on her own artwork instead. The next day, Yoko called him to thank him. That began a friendship with Yoko that is ostensibly still ongoing, and a ten-year friendship with John that is the subject of the memoir. Because the emphasis is on the Ono-Lennons in the 1970s, the other Beatles are only mentioned in passing, and I thought that was a very sound choice for the book.
I’ve read books about the Beatles and biographies of John Lennon, and I found this to be refreshingly new. While it doesn’t change anything material I knew about or thought of Lennon, Mintz was so close to Yoko and John that his stories are told with details and observations only an intimate friend can relay.
Mintz asserts that because he interviewed so many famous people on his show, he was immune to being starstruck and always treated John and Yoko as “just people.” (In support, he relates instances when he gave John some hard and frank truths!) In response, they were comfortable with him and trusted him, but it required sacrifice on his part. He spent hours each day in conversation with either/both of them, and in many ways his world revolved around them. He even had a separate line installed in his house just for them, and when it rang, a red light flashed in his bedroom (on his own initiative, not their request). It’s hard to imagine this isn’t the behavior of a starstruck apostle. In exchange for his devotion, he received access to the inner sanctum and what seems to be genuine love and friendship from John and Yoko.
I couldn’t help but wonder if I would or could ever table my own life for someone(s)!
I thought the writing of the memoir solid, even elegant, though I could have done without a few Beatle lyrics that were included to underline points. Sometimes authors of memoirs discuss their process, such as if they consult a diary or triangulate with people who were familiar with events. Here, Mintz doesn’t provide that information, nor does he reveal if anyone (i.e., Yoko or Sean) read the manuscript before publication. Unlike most memoirs, it has an index, though. Not criticisms, just observations!
May 1, 2025
Having found Mintz quite smarmy and difficult to like in any TV or film appearance about John and Yoko, I wasn’t sure about this book. However, he actually comes across much better in print and fills in much of his own backstory and how he came to be part of John and Yoko’s circle.
He is a terrible name dropper but marries this with a seemingly genuine bemusement at how his life has turned out and the people he’s met. I’m always curious when people recall conversations verbatim from many years ago but he does capture John’s speaking style.
Just as John liked Yoko’s (real or pretend) ignorance of The Beatles, so they both found in Mintz that his lack of awe or pestering them with fan questions, made him the perfect assistant. His willingness to be available almost 24/7 also serving in his favour. He has traded something of his own life and dreams to spend almost in the service of John and Yoko. There was a honesty to this reflection that I wasn’t expecting.
He is a terrible name dropper but marries this with a seemingly genuine bemusement at how his life has turned out and the people he’s met. I’m always curious when people recall conversations verbatim from many years ago but he does capture John’s speaking style.
Just as John liked Yoko’s (real or pretend) ignorance of The Beatles, so they both found in Mintz that his lack of awe or pestering them with fan questions, made him the perfect assistant. His willingness to be available almost 24/7 also serving in his favour. He has traded something of his own life and dreams to spend almost in the service of John and Yoko. There was a honesty to this reflection that I wasn’t expecting.
February 2, 2025
Even though I’ve read a lot about the Beatles over the years, the name Elliot Mintz is not a name I recall coming up very often. Mintz is a West Coast DJ, who became the chief confidant of John Lennon and Yoko Ono during the 70’s.
This volume really gives you some insight into the couple during this period. I came out of it realizing how human John was (warts and all) and what an emotionally strong person Yoko was. The fact that they didn’t get to grow old together is truly a crime.
This volume really gives you some insight into the couple during this period. I came out of it realizing how human John was (warts and all) and what an emotionally strong person Yoko was. The fact that they didn’t get to grow old together is truly a crime.
February 5, 2025
I am a huge Beatles fan. I remember the night I found out John was killed as if it were yesterday. This memoir by Elliot Mintz, gives an insider look to his relationship with the couple in th 9 years prior to John's death. Not a tell-all, but more an honest reflection of them as people, warts & all. I listened to the audiobook, read by the author. I highly recommend it.
March 16, 2025
Elliot Mintz is a good storyteller, who knows if all of these stories actually happened! One takeaway I got is that neither John nor Yoko were thoughtful, kind people. Just look at the example of how they treated poor Julian, John's first child. Even though I enjoyed reading the book and actually enjoyed the name-dropping, I kind of felt Elliot was a bit of a doormat.
May 27, 2025
A fascinating account of the author's (an American radio presenter who I had never heard of until now) close friendship with John and Yoko throughout the 1970s until John's tragic death in 1980. I listened to the audio book, which was narrated by the author himself
November 20, 2024
A good'un. great perspective, only wish it was longer!
December 10, 2024
A quick read, well written description of an interesting relationship. The author tells some great stories and clearly shows his admiration of John and Yoko. His approach to documenting John's belongings after his death is much more detailed than his recollections, but yet he shares surprisingly detailed accounts of time spent with the famous couple. A recommended read. I literally read it in one day!
February 9, 2025
Enjoyed it. a different look at john, yoko and their boys.
December 29, 2025
Loved every moment of this! Elliot’s recollections are beautiful, poignant and crystal clear ✨
January 9, 2026
Not as juicy as you’d hope but some great stuff in there about John and Yoko you’re probably never gonna read anywhere else
March 7, 2025
Ok ya this was fascinating
January 11, 2026
Yep. It was THAT good. Loved it. Thanks @natalie for the suggestion. And Molly at Heywood Hill! For sending.
November 21, 2024
Through the eyes of a friend (Mintz), this takes you on an interesting journey into the lives of John and Yoko. This narrative drew me in.
May 27, 2025
I'm pretty sceptical of a lot of the anecdotes Mintz has described in the book. The level of detail he's able to recall from mundane conversations 50 years ago makes for an entertaining but doubtful read. Especially since most of his stories surround just the three of them, it makes it difficult to refute a lot of his claims.
Regardless, I found the memoir to humanize Yoko in a way I haven't seen before. While already a fan, We all shine on, has helped me appreciate her work just a bit more :)
Regardless, I found the memoir to humanize Yoko in a way I haven't seen before. While already a fan, We all shine on, has helped me appreciate her work just a bit more :)
August 15, 2025
If you were to pull all the sycophantic lines out of We All Shine On, Elliot Mintz's memoir about his relationship with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, you'd have enough material to fill a small, stand-alone volume. The full effect of his obsequiousness doesn't hit you until you're well into the book. For me it reached a breaking point on page 262, when Lennon asks Mintz if there's anything he doesn't like about Double Fantasy, Lennon's final album, a collaboration with Ono. "I can't think of anything I don't love about it," Mintz says, not daring to utter a single word that might convey the slightest hint of negativity about Ono's questionable contributions, which make up half an LP that Lennon, in his own journals, called "mediocre."
The harshest thing Mintz can bring himself to say about Ono is that it seemed risky "that she put so much faith in the occult." But he also notes that when he was working as a radio journalist she ruined his interview with Baba Ram Das, the psychologist, when she insulted him, saying that he sounded "a little phony," and she (and Lennon) constantly interrupted his interview with Salvador Dalí. (He took Lennon and Ono to the interviews because, he says, they wanted to go and "there was no way I could say no.") Otherwise he showers Ono with praise, saying that she is "a complicated woman, gaming out her future like a chess master thinking five moves ahead"; writes music that's "inspiring," "sweet," "poetic," and "comforting"; and manipulates John "with the cool precision of a doctor preparing for an amputation." Mintz also seems to agree with Lennon's assessment of Ono that she's "always right."
Mintz does not treat Lennon with the same unflagging respect. Though he never criticized John to his face, the ex-Beatle's repeated verbal abuse seems to have left Mintz with a certain amount of resentment. And it comes across in his descriptions of Lennon's egregious and well-documented character flaws. But if he'd ignored them, the book's lack of credibility would be even more obvious.
Lennon's alcohol-fueled ugliness casts a shadow over We All Shine On. Mintz is often "all but carrying" a drunken Lennon somewhere. A typical incident takes place in Tokyo in 1977. Mintz and Lennon are drinking in a sake bar. The crowd recognizes John and goes nuts. Mintz and Lennon flee into the street, but Lennon wants to drink more. Mintz insists they return to the hotel. Lennon grabs him by the lapels, slams him against a wall, and says, "If I want to have a f***ing drink, you're not standing in my way." (On another occasion, a completely sober Lennon says to Mintz, "I'm gonna ask you to do anything I f***ing feel like asking you. Don't ever tell me what I can or can't say to you.")
The worst episode occurs in 1973 after Lennon and Ono separate and he moves to LA with May Pang, his assistant who became his lover. Ono has instructed Mintz, based in LA, to look after John because, he says, he was "functionally a child when it came to taking care of himself." One night, while living at record producer Lou Adler's house, Lennon, in a drunken rage after a difficult recording session with Phil Spector, smashes Adler's gold records with a walking stick until security guards subdue him and tie him to a chair. Mintz arrives to find Lennon still raging and demanding to be untied. "Then," he writes, "John spat out an epithet so hurtful and offensive… I can't bring myself to repeat it." (Lennon, I'd imagine, used a more vicious variation of the "queer Jew" remark he said to Brian Epstein when Epstein asked him to suggest a title for his memoir—he called it A Cellar Full of Noise.)
Where Pang was during this incident is unclear, and it's Mintz's treatment of her that underscores the book's lack of credibility. After he picked up John and May at the airport, he says, he seldom saw her again in LA and can't recall a single conversation, in LA or New York, in which John mentioned her name. He writes her out of the story, challenging Pang's perceptions of her relationship with Lennon and implying that she's delusional if she thinks Lennon had deep feelings for her. He says that her account of what happened in LA gives you the impression that "she was the red hot center of John's universe" when, in fact, her only job "was to make sure John was properly fed and cared for." The furthest Mintz goes is to admit that John had some "genuine affection for her." May, according to Mintz, was nothing, and Yoko was his only true love.
If it's true that Mintz rarely saw John and May together in LA, it's because Lennon didn't want him to see them together and have Mintz report back to Yoko. And if John never spoke to Mintz about May, it's because John continued seeing her after he returned to Yoko. According to Lennon's own journals, he saw May anytime he could get away from Yoko and carried a flame for her until the end. John wanted them both but Yoko wouldn't allow it.
Yet We All Shine On, despite its credibility issues, is an entertaining book, and Mintz, who doesn't credit a ghostwriter, shows flashes of writing talent. Though there's the occasional cliché ("after what felt like an eternity"); the intermittent slip into PR-speak ("No one can capture the way Lennon talks in writing"); and a handful of overdone similes (in the same paragraph Mintz is "like a tragic character in an Edgar Allan Poe story" and a moment in the Dakota is "like a scene from a classic film noir thriller"), he knows how to tell a story. And there are a few stories that even the most avid Lennon fanatics probably haven't heard. For example, Lennon and Mintz, on their way to the airport in LA, stop, on John's command, at a seedy strip club, the Losers, and even as the dancers gyrate inches from Lennon's face, they don't recognize him—he's too out of context. And Mintz's melancholy recollection of Lennon and Paul McCartney's awkward Christmas reunion at the Dakota nicely illustrates how the ex-Beatles had grown apart and had little to talk about.
There are also some charming descriptions of Laurel Canyon in the early 1970s, when Mintz lived there, and of Karuizawa, Japan, in 1977, where he spent time with Lennon and Ono.
Mintz does manage to make himself seem sympathetic with a relatable backstory. He grew up in Washington Heights, in upper Manhattan, at the time a working-class Jewish neighborhood. His father, a Polish immigrant, worked in the garment business. Mintz was shy, awkward, and smaller than his classmates. He also stuttered, which led to his being bullied. Wanting to work in radio, he studied broadcasting at Los Angeles City College and overcame his stutter. His big break came while still in college, in 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. One of his classmates was in the marines with JFK's killer, Lee Harvey Oswald. Mintz interviewed him, and by the end of the day the interview had been broadcast all over the city. Soon he had a job interviewing rock stars and beat poets on late-night radio. Impressed by Ono's experimental LP Fly, he interviewed her, it went well, and she started calling him all the time. Sometimes they talked for as long as seven hours. Then he interviewed Lennon and soon had a hotline installed in his house exclusively for Lennon and Ono, as well as a red light over his bed that flashed when they called in the middle of the night. (Mintz claims he has a photographic memory and can "reconstruct complete conversations" he had with Lennon and Ono a half-century ago. He most likely recorded them, a common practice among the Lenono company employees.) "I had come to accept that being at John and Yoko's beck and call was becoming my mission in life," he writes. "Why I accepted that mission, I couldn't tell you. I just did."
To venture a guess: Maybe his personal life was empty and the Lenono connection filled him with the identity he craved.
One of the book's oddities is Mintz's irrelevant and distracting emphasis on his girlfriends, which, to venture another guess, nobody really cares about. But he wants you to know that he did, indeed, have girlfriends. He refers a number of times to his impossibly demanding relationship with John and Yoko and their endless phone calls as the reason he never married and had children. "If only I'd had the strength to resist the undefinable magnetic pull [of John and Yoko], I might have ended up having a more balanced, traditional existence," he writes. Instead, he says, he was married to John and Yoko.
The girlfriend dynamic plays out in a story he tells about a "stunningly beautiful" woman he met at the Troubadour club, in LA, in 1971. He of the photographic memory can't remember her name but says she might have been his "soulmate." He's in bed with her when Ono calls at four a.m. Maybe, he thinks, he shouldn't take the call. But he takes it, and he's on the phone for more than an hour talking with her about losing weight. His girlfriend wakes up and wants to know what's going on. He can't tell her. John and Yoko are a secret, and divulging the friendship would be breaking their "unspoken code of trust" (which becomes spoken when Ono orders him, "Just keep us your secret"). Mintz's potential soulmate leaves and he never sees her again.
Another peculiarity is Mintz's take on his multitude of celebrity friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. The name-dropping is intense: Sal Mineo, Mickey Dolenz, David Cassidy, Donovan, Brian Wilson, Beau and Jeff Bridges, Alice Cooper, Paris Hilton, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Carole King, David Crosby, Stephen Stills. He says he doesn't know exactly why celebrities are attracted to him. "I never sought out relationships with famous people; they just somehow gravitated towards me…. It's the story of my life, being befriended by the fabled and adored." His best guess is that he's done so many celebrity interviews, he's not starstruck, and I'm sure that's part of it. But Mintz is also small (Ono size), unthreatening, discreet, takes abuse well, and follows orders. Most importantly, he had popular radio and TV shows that provided a safe space, devoid of uncomfortable questions, where celebrities could promote their work.
In the final part of the book, which covers the aftermath of Lennon's murder, Mintz obliterates his last shreds of credibility when he tells the story of Fred Seaman, John and Yoko's personal assistant and Lennon's paid companion—essentially one of Mintz's New York counterparts. I'm intimately familiar with this particular lie because it involves me. For a detailed account of what happened, I'd direct you to my own book Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon, especially a chapter titled "An Open Letter to G. Barry Golson." Golson was the Playboy magazine editor who, in 1984, shepherded into print a more elaborate version of the tale that Mintz has been peddling for more than 40 years and that he dictated to David and Victoria Sheff who are credited with writing the story.
In We All Shine On, Mintz says that after Lennon's murder Seaman, portraying himself as "Lennon's true disciple," smuggled out of the Dakota five of John's personal journals, gave them to me, and instructed me to write a "tell-all book."
One part of this is true: Seaman did give me Lennon's journals. As I describe in Nowhere Man, he told me that in the summer of 1980, when Lennon was in Bermuda working on Double Fantasy, he had a premonition of his death—listen to "Borrowed Time," recorded in Bermuda—and if anything should happen to him, it was Seaman's job to tell the true story of his life and use any research material he needed.
As I later testified under oath, at Seaman's 2002 copyright infringement trial: Yes, I believed him. I had no reason not to. Seaman, a close and trusted friend, had always been supportive of my writing career and wanted me to help him write John's biography. The journals alone were proof enough that he was telling the truth. It didn't seem possible that he could just walk out of the Dakota with John's diaries unless he'd been authorized to do so.
The project blew up in my face in 1983 when Seaman ransacked my apartment while I was out of town, taking everything I'd been working on. I then came forward and told Ono what happened. She asked to see my diaries beginning from the day she hired Seaman. Mintz was one of the people she gave them to: 500,000 words, written in the heat of the moment, most of them on teletype paper run through an IBM Selectric typewriter—a Kerouac-inspired literary experiment. Mintz and the Playboy team combed through those pages searching for anything they could use in their article that would damage me and Seaman. From those half-million words they cherry-picked about 200, and distorted them with their own commentary.
One sentence pilfered from my diary originally described Ono's unparalleled ability to exploit the Lennon name only months after his death: "Dead Lennons equal big $" (as Mintz slightly misquotes it). Forty years ago in Playboy and now in his book, Mintz turns the line around to say it's a description of my own and Seaman's attitude toward Lennon's murder. Except Mintz now says that Seaman "scrawled" the line in his own diaries. Why he attributes it to Seaman and says it was scrawled rather than typewritten appears to be a gratuitous lie intended to do nothing more than further damage Seaman.
Another probable (though harmless) lie is Mintz's account of how he found out Lennon had been murdered. He says his mother called him because she heard on the radio somebody had been shot "at that building on Seventy-Second Street you're always visiting." He tries calling the Dakota but can't get anyone on the phone. He turns on the TV. Nothing. (It doesn't occur to him to turn on KNX, LA's all-news radio station.) In a panic he decides to fly to New York and drives to the airport, but the radio in his Jaguar isn't working. Walking through the airport, he sees nothing, hears nothing. On the plane, a crying flight attendant emerges from the cockpit. He asks her what's wrong and she tells him John Lennon is dead. The story simply does not have the ring of truth, and it's a reminder that little in this book can be taken at face value and every word, especially about Lennon and Ono, should be regarded with extreme skepticism.
More lies: When Albert Goldman's 1988 biography, The Lives of John Lennon, is published, Mintz asks Ono to do a radio interview to dispel "rumors" that "John's 'househusband' image was a public relations fraud" and that he was a devotee of prostitutes. It's more or less true that Lennon was kind of a quasi-househusband at times, but he did have a masseuse regularly come to the Dakota to manually pleasure him (Ringo walked in one such session) and he did visit prostitutes in South Africa when he went there in April 1980. He wrote about it in his journals.
Another one of Mintz's New York counterparts, Michael "Mike Tree" Medeiros, Lennon's gardner, personal assistant, and friend (Ono's attorneys have blocked the publication of his memoir), disputes a number of Mintz's claims about what happened when he arrived at the Dakota after John's murder. Mintz says he saw Lennon's blood on the pavement as he entered the building. Medeiros says the blood was cleaned up long before Mintz arrived. Mintz says he spent a lot of time with Ono's employees "fielding a never-ending barrage of phone calls." According to Medeiros, one of the people fielding those calls, Mintz never fielded any phone calls.
Yes, these are minor threads in a tapestry of lies, and to point out more would be redundant. But they do show that the essential problem with the book is how to discern truth from Mintz's skillfully spun PR fantasies. Perhaps it's best to keep in mind that the author of We All Shine On gave up a journalism career to lie on command for Lennon and Ono, to be their G. Gordon Liddy—a man who would walk over his own grandmother for John and Yoko (as Liddy said he'd do for Richard Nixon).
We All Shine On is both a fairy tale and a masterpiece of propaganda. It's the flip side of Seaman's book, The Last Days of John Lennon: A Personal Memoir, also a well-crafted, entertaining read with serious credibility issues but that has nothing good to say about Ono (and that Ono's attorneys were able to force out of print).
In the case of both books, truth seekers would be well advised to look elsewhere.
An addendum to the above.
The Day Elliot Mintz Told the Truth
"When John was not making any music between 1975 and almost '80, and Paul would have these mega-hits with Wings, John became insanely jealous about that.... He was jealous of the amount of attention and accolades, and the fact that Paul was filling stadiums."—Elliot Mintz on The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan podcast, July 30, 2025
"It was a war of irreconcilable ideological differences—and jealously. It drove John bonkers that while he'd gone five years with no public acclaim, Paul had continued to pump out hit after hit, perpetually riding high on the charts. Paul, not John, was the most successful ex-Beatle... and he had a bigger family, too. Paul was happier!"—from Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon, published August 2000
John Lennon and Yoko Ono's sycophantic friend Elliot Mintz is now taking his cues from Nowhere Man as he continues to promote his own book, We All Shine On.
In the above review I called Mintz's memoir "a masterpiece of propaganda" filled with easily disproven lies. His statement on Lennon's jealousy towards McCartney is not in the book, and it's news when Mintz breaks down and tells the truth. In this case, he's confirming what I wrote 25 years ago in Nowhere Man, a book that he went to extreme lengths to try to discredit before and after it was published.
Why toss out a random truth now? Because Mintz needs to seed his unctuous bulls*#t with newsworthy tidbits if he wants the media to continue to pay attention. (People magazine published the comments from the podcast.)
Next thing you know he'll disavow everything he wrote about May Pang in We All Shine On and instead wax unctuously about Lennon's undying passion for May and how he'd slip away to see her after returning to Yoko Ono—the opposite of Mintz's "official" story.
Yes, Elliot, just give us some truth—as I did in Nowhere Man, a book people are still talking about after 25 years.
The harshest thing Mintz can bring himself to say about Ono is that it seemed risky "that she put so much faith in the occult." But he also notes that when he was working as a radio journalist she ruined his interview with Baba Ram Das, the psychologist, when she insulted him, saying that he sounded "a little phony," and she (and Lennon) constantly interrupted his interview with Salvador Dalí. (He took Lennon and Ono to the interviews because, he says, they wanted to go and "there was no way I could say no.") Otherwise he showers Ono with praise, saying that she is "a complicated woman, gaming out her future like a chess master thinking five moves ahead"; writes music that's "inspiring," "sweet," "poetic," and "comforting"; and manipulates John "with the cool precision of a doctor preparing for an amputation." Mintz also seems to agree with Lennon's assessment of Ono that she's "always right."
Mintz does not treat Lennon with the same unflagging respect. Though he never criticized John to his face, the ex-Beatle's repeated verbal abuse seems to have left Mintz with a certain amount of resentment. And it comes across in his descriptions of Lennon's egregious and well-documented character flaws. But if he'd ignored them, the book's lack of credibility would be even more obvious.
Lennon's alcohol-fueled ugliness casts a shadow over We All Shine On. Mintz is often "all but carrying" a drunken Lennon somewhere. A typical incident takes place in Tokyo in 1977. Mintz and Lennon are drinking in a sake bar. The crowd recognizes John and goes nuts. Mintz and Lennon flee into the street, but Lennon wants to drink more. Mintz insists they return to the hotel. Lennon grabs him by the lapels, slams him against a wall, and says, "If I want to have a f***ing drink, you're not standing in my way." (On another occasion, a completely sober Lennon says to Mintz, "I'm gonna ask you to do anything I f***ing feel like asking you. Don't ever tell me what I can or can't say to you.")
The worst episode occurs in 1973 after Lennon and Ono separate and he moves to LA with May Pang, his assistant who became his lover. Ono has instructed Mintz, based in LA, to look after John because, he says, he was "functionally a child when it came to taking care of himself." One night, while living at record producer Lou Adler's house, Lennon, in a drunken rage after a difficult recording session with Phil Spector, smashes Adler's gold records with a walking stick until security guards subdue him and tie him to a chair. Mintz arrives to find Lennon still raging and demanding to be untied. "Then," he writes, "John spat out an epithet so hurtful and offensive… I can't bring myself to repeat it." (Lennon, I'd imagine, used a more vicious variation of the "queer Jew" remark he said to Brian Epstein when Epstein asked him to suggest a title for his memoir—he called it A Cellar Full of Noise.)
Where Pang was during this incident is unclear, and it's Mintz's treatment of her that underscores the book's lack of credibility. After he picked up John and May at the airport, he says, he seldom saw her again in LA and can't recall a single conversation, in LA or New York, in which John mentioned her name. He writes her out of the story, challenging Pang's perceptions of her relationship with Lennon and implying that she's delusional if she thinks Lennon had deep feelings for her. He says that her account of what happened in LA gives you the impression that "she was the red hot center of John's universe" when, in fact, her only job "was to make sure John was properly fed and cared for." The furthest Mintz goes is to admit that John had some "genuine affection for her." May, according to Mintz, was nothing, and Yoko was his only true love.
If it's true that Mintz rarely saw John and May together in LA, it's because Lennon didn't want him to see them together and have Mintz report back to Yoko. And if John never spoke to Mintz about May, it's because John continued seeing her after he returned to Yoko. According to Lennon's own journals, he saw May anytime he could get away from Yoko and carried a flame for her until the end. John wanted them both but Yoko wouldn't allow it.
Yet We All Shine On, despite its credibility issues, is an entertaining book, and Mintz, who doesn't credit a ghostwriter, shows flashes of writing talent. Though there's the occasional cliché ("after what felt like an eternity"); the intermittent slip into PR-speak ("No one can capture the way Lennon talks in writing"); and a handful of overdone similes (in the same paragraph Mintz is "like a tragic character in an Edgar Allan Poe story" and a moment in the Dakota is "like a scene from a classic film noir thriller"), he knows how to tell a story. And there are a few stories that even the most avid Lennon fanatics probably haven't heard. For example, Lennon and Mintz, on their way to the airport in LA, stop, on John's command, at a seedy strip club, the Losers, and even as the dancers gyrate inches from Lennon's face, they don't recognize him—he's too out of context. And Mintz's melancholy recollection of Lennon and Paul McCartney's awkward Christmas reunion at the Dakota nicely illustrates how the ex-Beatles had grown apart and had little to talk about.
There are also some charming descriptions of Laurel Canyon in the early 1970s, when Mintz lived there, and of Karuizawa, Japan, in 1977, where he spent time with Lennon and Ono.
Mintz does manage to make himself seem sympathetic with a relatable backstory. He grew up in Washington Heights, in upper Manhattan, at the time a working-class Jewish neighborhood. His father, a Polish immigrant, worked in the garment business. Mintz was shy, awkward, and smaller than his classmates. He also stuttered, which led to his being bullied. Wanting to work in radio, he studied broadcasting at Los Angeles City College and overcame his stutter. His big break came while still in college, in 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. One of his classmates was in the marines with JFK's killer, Lee Harvey Oswald. Mintz interviewed him, and by the end of the day the interview had been broadcast all over the city. Soon he had a job interviewing rock stars and beat poets on late-night radio. Impressed by Ono's experimental LP Fly, he interviewed her, it went well, and she started calling him all the time. Sometimes they talked for as long as seven hours. Then he interviewed Lennon and soon had a hotline installed in his house exclusively for Lennon and Ono, as well as a red light over his bed that flashed when they called in the middle of the night. (Mintz claims he has a photographic memory and can "reconstruct complete conversations" he had with Lennon and Ono a half-century ago. He most likely recorded them, a common practice among the Lenono company employees.) "I had come to accept that being at John and Yoko's beck and call was becoming my mission in life," he writes. "Why I accepted that mission, I couldn't tell you. I just did."
To venture a guess: Maybe his personal life was empty and the Lenono connection filled him with the identity he craved.
One of the book's oddities is Mintz's irrelevant and distracting emphasis on his girlfriends, which, to venture another guess, nobody really cares about. But he wants you to know that he did, indeed, have girlfriends. He refers a number of times to his impossibly demanding relationship with John and Yoko and their endless phone calls as the reason he never married and had children. "If only I'd had the strength to resist the undefinable magnetic pull [of John and Yoko], I might have ended up having a more balanced, traditional existence," he writes. Instead, he says, he was married to John and Yoko.
The girlfriend dynamic plays out in a story he tells about a "stunningly beautiful" woman he met at the Troubadour club, in LA, in 1971. He of the photographic memory can't remember her name but says she might have been his "soulmate." He's in bed with her when Ono calls at four a.m. Maybe, he thinks, he shouldn't take the call. But he takes it, and he's on the phone for more than an hour talking with her about losing weight. His girlfriend wakes up and wants to know what's going on. He can't tell her. John and Yoko are a secret, and divulging the friendship would be breaking their "unspoken code of trust" (which becomes spoken when Ono orders him, "Just keep us your secret"). Mintz's potential soulmate leaves and he never sees her again.
Another peculiarity is Mintz's take on his multitude of celebrity friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. The name-dropping is intense: Sal Mineo, Mickey Dolenz, David Cassidy, Donovan, Brian Wilson, Beau and Jeff Bridges, Alice Cooper, Paris Hilton, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Carole King, David Crosby, Stephen Stills. He says he doesn't know exactly why celebrities are attracted to him. "I never sought out relationships with famous people; they just somehow gravitated towards me…. It's the story of my life, being befriended by the fabled and adored." His best guess is that he's done so many celebrity interviews, he's not starstruck, and I'm sure that's part of it. But Mintz is also small (Ono size), unthreatening, discreet, takes abuse well, and follows orders. Most importantly, he had popular radio and TV shows that provided a safe space, devoid of uncomfortable questions, where celebrities could promote their work.
In the final part of the book, which covers the aftermath of Lennon's murder, Mintz obliterates his last shreds of credibility when he tells the story of Fred Seaman, John and Yoko's personal assistant and Lennon's paid companion—essentially one of Mintz's New York counterparts. I'm intimately familiar with this particular lie because it involves me. For a detailed account of what happened, I'd direct you to my own book Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon, especially a chapter titled "An Open Letter to G. Barry Golson." Golson was the Playboy magazine editor who, in 1984, shepherded into print a more elaborate version of the tale that Mintz has been peddling for more than 40 years and that he dictated to David and Victoria Sheff who are credited with writing the story.
In We All Shine On, Mintz says that after Lennon's murder Seaman, portraying himself as "Lennon's true disciple," smuggled out of the Dakota five of John's personal journals, gave them to me, and instructed me to write a "tell-all book."
One part of this is true: Seaman did give me Lennon's journals. As I describe in Nowhere Man, he told me that in the summer of 1980, when Lennon was in Bermuda working on Double Fantasy, he had a premonition of his death—listen to "Borrowed Time," recorded in Bermuda—and if anything should happen to him, it was Seaman's job to tell the true story of his life and use any research material he needed.
As I later testified under oath, at Seaman's 2002 copyright infringement trial: Yes, I believed him. I had no reason not to. Seaman, a close and trusted friend, had always been supportive of my writing career and wanted me to help him write John's biography. The journals alone were proof enough that he was telling the truth. It didn't seem possible that he could just walk out of the Dakota with John's diaries unless he'd been authorized to do so.
The project blew up in my face in 1983 when Seaman ransacked my apartment while I was out of town, taking everything I'd been working on. I then came forward and told Ono what happened. She asked to see my diaries beginning from the day she hired Seaman. Mintz was one of the people she gave them to: 500,000 words, written in the heat of the moment, most of them on teletype paper run through an IBM Selectric typewriter—a Kerouac-inspired literary experiment. Mintz and the Playboy team combed through those pages searching for anything they could use in their article that would damage me and Seaman. From those half-million words they cherry-picked about 200, and distorted them with their own commentary.
One sentence pilfered from my diary originally described Ono's unparalleled ability to exploit the Lennon name only months after his death: "Dead Lennons equal big $" (as Mintz slightly misquotes it). Forty years ago in Playboy and now in his book, Mintz turns the line around to say it's a description of my own and Seaman's attitude toward Lennon's murder. Except Mintz now says that Seaman "scrawled" the line in his own diaries. Why he attributes it to Seaman and says it was scrawled rather than typewritten appears to be a gratuitous lie intended to do nothing more than further damage Seaman.
Another probable (though harmless) lie is Mintz's account of how he found out Lennon had been murdered. He says his mother called him because she heard on the radio somebody had been shot "at that building on Seventy-Second Street you're always visiting." He tries calling the Dakota but can't get anyone on the phone. He turns on the TV. Nothing. (It doesn't occur to him to turn on KNX, LA's all-news radio station.) In a panic he decides to fly to New York and drives to the airport, but the radio in his Jaguar isn't working. Walking through the airport, he sees nothing, hears nothing. On the plane, a crying flight attendant emerges from the cockpit. He asks her what's wrong and she tells him John Lennon is dead. The story simply does not have the ring of truth, and it's a reminder that little in this book can be taken at face value and every word, especially about Lennon and Ono, should be regarded with extreme skepticism.
More lies: When Albert Goldman's 1988 biography, The Lives of John Lennon, is published, Mintz asks Ono to do a radio interview to dispel "rumors" that "John's 'househusband' image was a public relations fraud" and that he was a devotee of prostitutes. It's more or less true that Lennon was kind of a quasi-househusband at times, but he did have a masseuse regularly come to the Dakota to manually pleasure him (Ringo walked in one such session) and he did visit prostitutes in South Africa when he went there in April 1980. He wrote about it in his journals.
Another one of Mintz's New York counterparts, Michael "Mike Tree" Medeiros, Lennon's gardner, personal assistant, and friend (Ono's attorneys have blocked the publication of his memoir), disputes a number of Mintz's claims about what happened when he arrived at the Dakota after John's murder. Mintz says he saw Lennon's blood on the pavement as he entered the building. Medeiros says the blood was cleaned up long before Mintz arrived. Mintz says he spent a lot of time with Ono's employees "fielding a never-ending barrage of phone calls." According to Medeiros, one of the people fielding those calls, Mintz never fielded any phone calls.
Yes, these are minor threads in a tapestry of lies, and to point out more would be redundant. But they do show that the essential problem with the book is how to discern truth from Mintz's skillfully spun PR fantasies. Perhaps it's best to keep in mind that the author of We All Shine On gave up a journalism career to lie on command for Lennon and Ono, to be their G. Gordon Liddy—a man who would walk over his own grandmother for John and Yoko (as Liddy said he'd do for Richard Nixon).
We All Shine On is both a fairy tale and a masterpiece of propaganda. It's the flip side of Seaman's book, The Last Days of John Lennon: A Personal Memoir, also a well-crafted, entertaining read with serious credibility issues but that has nothing good to say about Ono (and that Ono's attorneys were able to force out of print).
In the case of both books, truth seekers would be well advised to look elsewhere.
An addendum to the above.
The Day Elliot Mintz Told the Truth
"When John was not making any music between 1975 and almost '80, and Paul would have these mega-hits with Wings, John became insanely jealous about that.... He was jealous of the amount of attention and accolades, and the fact that Paul was filling stadiums."—Elliot Mintz on The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan podcast, July 30, 2025
"It was a war of irreconcilable ideological differences—and jealously. It drove John bonkers that while he'd gone five years with no public acclaim, Paul had continued to pump out hit after hit, perpetually riding high on the charts. Paul, not John, was the most successful ex-Beatle... and he had a bigger family, too. Paul was happier!"—from Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon, published August 2000
John Lennon and Yoko Ono's sycophantic friend Elliot Mintz is now taking his cues from Nowhere Man as he continues to promote his own book, We All Shine On.
In the above review I called Mintz's memoir "a masterpiece of propaganda" filled with easily disproven lies. His statement on Lennon's jealousy towards McCartney is not in the book, and it's news when Mintz breaks down and tells the truth. In this case, he's confirming what I wrote 25 years ago in Nowhere Man, a book that he went to extreme lengths to try to discredit before and after it was published.
Why toss out a random truth now? Because Mintz needs to seed his unctuous bulls*#t with newsworthy tidbits if he wants the media to continue to pay attention. (People magazine published the comments from the podcast.)
Next thing you know he'll disavow everything he wrote about May Pang in We All Shine On and instead wax unctuously about Lennon's undying passion for May and how he'd slip away to see her after returning to Yoko Ono—the opposite of Mintz's "official" story.
Yes, Elliot, just give us some truth—as I did in Nowhere Man, a book people are still talking about after 25 years.
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