Why Is Yoko Ono Still Misunderstood?

"The 32-year-old artist sat onstage in the deferential position, a pair of scissors at her side. The audience was invited to come one at a time and snip off a piece of her all-black ensemble. People were initially shy, trimming away a hem, a sleeve. But a group of young men started hacking away at her skirt and sweater. Ono became more exposed."

"Sheff and Ono had grown close during the reporting process, and he visited her in the aftermath of Lennon's murder. Their families remained intimate: Ono was the unnamed "old family friend" who opened her home to Sheff's troubled son, as the author described in his 2008 memoir, Beautiful Boy (which was later adapted into a movie starring Timothée Chalamet and Steve Carell)."

Yoko Ono experienced wartime trauma as a child, bedridden during Tokyo air raids and watching explosions from her bedroom window. In 1965 she performed Cut Piece in New York, inviting audience members to cut away her clothing until she became exposed, confronting vulnerability and violence. The biography was written with cooperation from family members, ex-partners, and longtime friends and documents Sheff's 1980 reporting visits with Ono and John Lennon; Lennon was murdered less than a day after Sheff's profile appeared. The account links Ono's early experiences to themes of resilience, artistic primacy, and lasting cultural influence beyond her association with Lennon.

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