The brilliant one-liner David Bowie stole from John Lennon - and The Beatle's even better comeback

23 January 2026, 08:38 | Updated: 23 January 2026, 08:41

David Bowie and John Lennon. Picture: Alamy

By Mayer Nissim

John Lennon and David Bowie sparked up a superstar friendship in the mid-1970s.

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From Freddie Mercury and Tina Turner to Marc Bolan and Cher, David Bowie had a great history of hooking up with major artists.

But (with the probable exception of Lulu, given her recent revelations) it's probably fair to say that his closest relationship with another superstar was that he had with John Lennon.

Lennon and The Beatles were a major influence on David Bowie, but he managed to overcome his starstruck feelings to strike up not just a great (if short lived) professional relationship, but also a real friendship.

Bowie frequently spoke about this friendship in the years after Lennon's death, and he delved deeply into their connection when giving a speech at the Berklee College of Music as he picked up his music doctorate there in 1999.

The whole speech is well worth your time and thankfully was recorded for posterity by the college, but one particular Lennon anecdote is especially wonderful.

David Bowie | Berklee Commencement Address 1999

Bowie spoke about being introduced to Lennon for the first time in 1974 by Elizabeth Taylor, adding that as well as being his "greatest mentor", "the seductive thing about John was his sense of humour".

And he proved that with the tale of the one-liner he stole from the Beatle, and the brilliant way Lennon trumped him with an even better comeback.

"Towards the end of the '70s, a group of us went off to Hong Kong on a holiday and John was in, sort of, house-husband mode and wanted to show Sean the world," Bowie said.

"And during one of our expeditions on the back streets a kid comes running up to him and says, 'Are you John Lennon?' And he said, 'No but I wish I had his money'. Which I promptly stole for myself.

David Bowie, Yoko Ono and John Lennon at the 17th Annual Grammy Awards. Picture: Getty Images

"[Imitating a fan] 'Are you David Bowie?'. No, but I wish I had his money."

Bowie continued: "It's brilliant. It was such a wonderful thing to say. The kid said, 'Oh, sorry. Of course you aren’t,' and ran off. I thought, 'This is the most effective device I’ve heard'.

"I was back in New York a couple of months later in Soho, downtown, and a voice pipes up in my ear, 'Are you David Bowie?'. And I said, 'No, but I wish I had his money'.

"'You lying bastard. You wish you had MY money.' It was John Lennon."

Fame (2016 Remaster)

After they met, Bowie and Lennon collaborated on a reworking of The Beatles 'Across The Universe' and the newly written 'Fame'.

And a Bowie diary entry that surfaced after his death suggested that he hoped of further creative hookups.

"Some wonderful publishing is fame," Bowie wrote. "My first co-written with Lennon, a beatle, about my future."

Unfortunately, it wasn't to be. Lennon dipped out of music for a few years to raise his son Sean, and was murdered in New York less than a month after the release of his comeback Double Fantasy album in 1980.