Inside 92-Year-Old Yoko Ono's Final Days Away From Spotlight She Once Lusted After: 'She Feels She Made Her Mark'

Yoko Ono is spending her final years in reflective seclusion, far from the spotlight she once craved, with sources telling OK! she now believes she has changed the world and now wants the peace of watching it from a distance.

The avant-garde artist, musician and activist – who stalked John Lennon before they met – has retreated from public life decades after rising to global fame in the 1960s and meeting Lennon, whom she married in 1969.

Their personal and creative partnership, forged after they met at Ono's London art exhibit in 1966, reshaped cultural and political activism in the early 1970s as the couple settled in New York City. The pair welcomed their son Sean in 1975, made boldly experimental music, and became fixtures of anti-war and civil rights campaigns.

But Ono's world changed irreversibly on December 8, 1980, when Lennon was shot and killed outside their Upper West Side home as she stood nearby.

Ono later said about his assassination by unhinged fan Mark David Chapman: "What I miss most about John is his incredible tenderness and his belief in me ... love can sometimes be h---. You could abuse each other in the name of love. But the thing that worked in our relationship was that we never lost respect for each other and always made sure to express it. We loved each other like there was no tomorrow."

That devotion shaped the decades that followed Lennon's death, with Ono continuing to create art while guarding Lennon's legacy. She also remained the subject of intense public fascination and criticism, including lingering claims she was the reason for The Beatles' breakup.

The new HBO documentary One to One: John & Yoko, directed by Kevin Macdonald, revisited the pivotal era of the couple's activism, music and relationship. It charted their life in New York, where they collaborated on albums such as Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins, Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions, Some Time in New York City and Double Fantasy.

The film also recounted their One to One benefit concerts on August 30, 1972 – Lennon's only full-length performances after The Beatles' final show in 1966.

After Lennon's death, Ono accepted the Grammy Award for album of the year for Double Fantasy in 1982 with Sean beside her, saying through tears: "I really don't know what to say. I think John is with us here today. Thank you very much. Both John and I were always very proud and happy that we were part of the human race who made good music for the Earth and for the universe. Thank you."

For more than 40 years, Ono lived at the scene of Lennon's murder, the Dakota building, and said about her attachment to the apartment block: "(John and I) shared this every day. Every day we shared each room. The good memory supersedes the bad memory. The bad memory was just one that was terrible. But other than that, I felt we were still together."

She added: "I would feel very strange if I had to leave this apartment. There are so many things that he touched here that he loved. Those things mean a lot."

But during the COVID-19 pandemic, Ono relocated permanently to the 600-acre upstate New York farm she and Lennon bought decades earlier.

According to her daughter Kyoko, Ono is now finally "in a happy place" there.

She said: "(My mom) believed she could change the world, and she did... now she is able to be quiet – listen to the wind and watch the sky. She is very happy. This is well-deserved and genuine peacefulness."

A longtime family friend added: "Yoko is 92 and feels her work is done. She sees the world she helped shape and wants only stillness now to see out her final days in peace and quiet."

Another source added: "She once thrived on attention, but these days she wants the opposite. She feels she made her mark, and now it's time simply to admire the life she lived."