John Lennon was one of the most talked-about celebrities of the 20th century. His life, music, art, and image were hot topics for decades. It’s not entirely surprising that his death would be the subject of a number of conspiracy theories and urban legends. In fact, while he was alive, The Beatles were the subject of more than a few conspiracy theories that people still debate about today.
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That being said, there’s something about a beloved man’s sudden and violent death being linked to the supernatural that just feels wrong to even entertain. And yet, there were plenty of people out there who believed that John Lennon’s murder was connected to Rosemary’s Baby.
The Urban Legend Connecting ‘Rosemary Baby’ to John Lennon’s Death is a Weird Coincidence, and Likely Nothing More
John Lennon passed away on December 8, 1980, at the age of 40. He was shot by a deranged fan, one Mark David Chapman. Chapman assassinated Lennon after becoming obsessed with him in the years leading up to the violent act. He would later say that demons and the devil made him do it.
Lennon’s death shook the world. And, probably to deal with the sudden loss of the icon, some fans came to believe that Lennon’s death was the result of a curse. That curse that was linked to John Lennon’s untimely death involved the 1968 Roman Polanski horror film, Rosemary’s Baby.
Lennon was shot outside of the apartment building he was living in at the time in 1980, known as The Dakota in New York City. That also happened to be the location where the film Rosemary’s Baby was first filmed. Apparently, one of the film’s producers, Robert Evans, chose the location because he felt The Dakota was an eerie-looking structure.
Obviously, the movie was filmed years before Lennon’s death. However, the film’s production was once linked to curses as well. The horror movie, which is about a pregnant woman who moves into those apartments and begins to suspect her neighbors are devil-worshipping cultists, was associated with a number of dark events.
To start, Polanski’s wife, Sharon Tate, was viciously murdered in real life by Charles Manson’s cult after the film was released. William Castle, a producer for the film, fell ill and would hallucinate things associated with the film. The film’s composer, Krzysktof Komedam, fell off a cliff. Evans himself suffered from strokes, though that was years after the film was released.
When you connect all of these paper-thin lines, such as Lennon’s one-sided connection to Manson as well as his friendship with Mia Farrow, who played the titular Rosemary, it makes sense why fans grasped at the cursed movie concept to assign meaning to Lennon’s death. The truth, however, is that Lennon’s murder was a senseless tragedy, and certainly not the result of a movie-related curse.
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