John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono launched into a vicious rant during a press conference after a reporter asked why she's still living in the apartment block where the Beatles legend was murdered.
The singer/artist held a junket in Los Angeles on Thursday (12Aug10) to promote a new TV documentary about her late husband.
But she pounced on one journalist who questioned why she still lives in The Dakota building in New York 30 years after Lennon was shot at the entrance to the apartment block by Mark Chapman.
She shouted, "I think people say, 'Why are you still living on Dakota?' You know, I think it is a slightly racist remark, and maybe sexist, too. Because I'm sure that many people are living in their own home, that he or she shared with their spouses, even after the spouse has passed away. Especially because they passed away. Because there's a lot of memories, and also you built the place with the spouse. I'm not going to leave that and go to some strange house."
And despite the press conference moving on, Ono refused to let the red-faced reporter off the hook.
She added, "Wait a second. I want to answer more fully about what he said, because that's sexist and racist. The thing is... when somebody like me, who is probably not part of your culture, how you think, 'Why she still living there? We wouldn't live there. Well, maybe because she has a different tradition and she doesn't care about the fact that he died there.' You know, something like that. A little bit more barbaric or something.
"The other thing is, for you to be able to say something like that, 'How dare she's living there?' (sic) is sexism, because I know that all guys wouldn't care... They would just live in the house, and no one's going to comment. No one's going to comment that you would go to maybe a whorehouse or something like that right after your wife died. 'I'm so sorry. He must be so sad.'"