Doorman at John Lennon's Apartment Recalls the Terrifying Moment the Singer Realized He'd Been Shot (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

John Lennon and Yoko Ono pose in front of the Dakota in 1980.Photo:Allan Tannenbaum/Polaris

Allan Tannenbaum/Polaris

For Jay Hastings, a former doorman at the Dakota, the New York City apartment building that the lateJohn Lennoncalled home, Dec. 8, 1980 is a day he’ll never forget.

“I remember everything like it was yesterday,” Hastingstells PEOPLE in this week’s issue, reflecting on the role he played during that pivotal moment in music history.

Of that night, Hastings says he recalls another doorman named Jose encountering the “Strawberry Fields Forever” singer first, moments after Lennon was shot.

“I could hear Jose outside, ‘Oh Mr. Lennon.’ Boom, boom, doors close and I could hear the quick march of heels coming up the driveway,” he recounts. “So I walked over to the counter, where there was a hidden security button to unlock the door, so you could get into the Dakota proper.”

Hastings continues, “As I was there with my finger on the button is when he [Lennon] came running up, immediately after hearing gunshots, and he’s like, ‘I’m shot, I’m shot’ and he just ran past me to the back office, and just collapsed.”

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The former doorman says that he quickly processed what happened, but notes that “you’re not computing the end result.” Hastings says he was unable to gauge the severity of the wound.

“[I] didn’t know how bad he was shot,” he says. “I went into to the back office, Yoko [Ono, Lennon’s wife] was there, like right behind him, screaming, ‘Get an ambulance. Get an ambulance.’ "

From left: Yoko Ono, Sean and John Lennon in 1977.Mediapunch/Shutterstock

Mediapunch/Shutterstock

For more on John Lennon, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.

Hastings also notes that Jose “had already pushed the panic button that was in the doorman’s booth, and that just overwhelms the outgoing line with a constant message to the police, pre-recorded.”

When Jose told Hastings that Lennon’s assailant was still outside and unarmed, he “grabbed the billy club on top of the safe” and went “down the stairs, because I was going to clock this guy, because I was afraid he was going to get away.”

Upon approaching Chapman, Lennon’s killer, Hastings tells PEOPLE he noticed him “facing the wall, doing something . . . He was reading a book.”

Moments later, he recalls the police arriving — and initially thinking that Hastings was the culprit: “I looked a little crazy, I already had blood on my hands, I just had my shirt on, my white shirt with no tie.”

But Jose quickly pointed the offices to Chapman, who was arrested and ultimately sentenced to 20-years-to-life for shooting Lennon.

“There’s a lot more to the story than a lone gunman suddenly turns up, squeezes the trigger, end of story,” Nick Holt, the director of the series, tells PEOPLE. “A lot of people obviously lost an idol, but first and foremost, he very much [was] a dad and husband.”

source: people.com