I know and respect Fred Seaman, John Lennon’s assistant through the last two years of Lennon’s life; and I recommend his fascinating book, John Lennon: Living on Borrowed Time (or The Last Days of John Lennon, as some editions have it).
Fred has long been targeted by Yoko Ono, who has used her mammoth fortune, and the law, to gag him tightly, and forever. Her latest strike has left him disallowed to speak John’s name in public.
Please consider helping him with your donations, as my friend Jane Austin has requested:
Hi Mark,
Could anyone chip in for Fred Seaman’s gofundme page?
This new settlement is so intrusive!
Yoko Ono Muzzles Former Lennon Assistant in Copyright Settlement see https://copyrightlately.com/yoko-ono-copyright-settlement/
Read literally, the agreement appears to prevent Seaman from speaking to anyone—on any subject—without telling them about the injunction, and then notifying Ono. He’s also seemingly prohibited from doing so much as playing a Beatles album in his own home.
Fred wrote a now-banned book “Last Days of John Lennon,” published in 1991, to provide insight into what was going on with John in the months/days before his untimely death. Yoko Ono has waged war against him since 1983 to discredit him, punish him and, now, silence him completely, for the rest of his life so that he can never say the words “John Lennon” in public to anyone ever again.
Fred has had to pay thousands of dollars for a legal retainer and then nearly triple that in legal expenses for the $400/hour lawyer who is representing him.
Yoko, who had already sued Fred twicce, sued him again, in Sept 2020, for giving a public 23-minute interview, for which he wasn’t paid. He had given over 100 interviews since 1981, but this one got him sued:
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/other/yoko-ono-sues-john-lennon-s-former-aide-for-copyright-infringement/ar-BB19DDc3This gag order is just plain legal bullying, as—again—Fred had already given numerous interviews before the gag order went into effect around 2002 and so his public interviews, both filmed and recorded, had already gone public in various documentaries and books. For example, this website includes a video of an interview with Fred from the early 1980’s:
https://lifeofthebeatles.blogspot.com/2010/01/beatle-people-fred-seaman.htmlAt no time did Fred ever sign, nor was required to sign, an NDA or confidentiality agreement. Those documents were only presented many years after Fred resigned in 1981.
This is just harassment of a man without the financial resources to defend himself against a very powerful person.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2275938.stm
Since Fred is not allowed to talk about his plight, I’m trying to help him. Thank you.