“I needed a rest. I needed space,” she tells The Telegraph many years later. “I was very aware that we were ruining each other’s careers and I was hated and John was hated because of me. We did everything together and we did everything publicly together. The Bed-In was our work for peace but we weren’t liked for it,” she reflects. “It was a very difficult time.”

As for John’s recent behavior, “I started to notice that he became a little restless on top of that, so I thought it’s better to give him a rest and me a rest.”

Though stories vary, Yoko maintains that she’s the one who orchestrates the next steps. It’s obvious they’ll never really succeed in staying apart as long as John remains in New York, “So then I suggested L.A., and he just lit up,” Yoko says.

She also knows that being left to his own devices would not be good for John. He doesn’t know how to be single; he’s never been fully on his own. Yoko decides he needs someone to look after him, a woman to keep him interested (and in line). So she casts about and decides to approach one of their assistants—the always friendly and helpful May Pang, who is single and pretty—to take on the role of John’s new girlfriend. “May Pang was a very intelligent, attractive woman and extremely efficient. I thought they’d be OK,” Yoko reasons.

She pitches the idea to May. “John will probably start going out with other people. Who knows who he will go out with? I know he likes you a lot. So…?”

Twenty-two-year-old May—a Chinese American woman from Spanish Harlem, who is first and foremost a “gung-ho rock fan”—is startled and confused by the proposition.

“I just looked at her and said, ‘Not me. I’m not interested,’” May tells interviewers in 2008. But Yoko is undeterred. “I know you’re not after him, but you need a boyfriend,” May recalls Yoko telling her. “I let that pass because I thought this is one of those crazy moments, and I had hoped her idea would pass.”

The thought of having an affair with her boss, a married man, has never even crossed the young Catholic girl’s mind.

Though monumentally out of her depth, once John approaches her himself to make it clear that he is in fact interested in her, May decides she’s willing to be part of this strange situation. In the late summer of 1973, John and May decamp for Los Angeles—but not on Yoko’s orders, May insists—because there are obvious benefits for the new couple in another city. Plus, John has recording projects lined up in LA, so Capitol Records fronts the expense of the trip with a loan to John of $10,000 in traveler’s checks.