Julian Lennon has opened up about his diagnosis with coronary heart disease, and urged people to “get checked out sooner than later”.
The 63-year-old musician and documentary filmmaker is the son of Beatles icon John Lennon and his first wife Cynthia. He took to social media over the weekend to speak out about his recent health battles, revealing that he has been diagnosed with coronary heart disease and told he is a pre-diabetic.
Posting a carousel of images, he shared his hopes to raise awareness for the illness and wrote: “I urge you all to get checked out sooner rather than later. You never know what hidden health issues you may have, even after exercising and eating as much ‘good/healthy’ food as possible.”
“Nip it in the bud! As they say,” he added, also sharing that he has “managed to catch them early enough to be able to reverse some of the damage, and will hopefully be able to live a healthy long life.”
“Please get checked out, before you’re checked out. And last but not least, thanks to all the Doctors who have helped and guided me on this new journey so far… Truly,” he concluded.
The health update comes around six years after Lennon revealed that he underwent emergency surgery to remove a cancerous growth from his head, following a dermatologist noticing it and urging him to book a biopsy.
He went in for the operation after it was discovered to be “cancerous”, and later told his fans: “Hopefully we managed to remove all that was cancerous, but the mole is being sent off again, for a further/deeper analysis, and I’ll have those results next week.”
The musician was then given the all-clear and revealed that the incident came after a “very trying year” for him, and just five years after his mother died in 2015.
In 2024, he announced another cancer scare, revealing that he underwent emergency surgery after being diagnosed with skin cancer.
“The operation was a success,” he told fans. “First of all, I’m very thankful to Dr Tess and Dr Tim for being able to coordinate this surgery at such short notice, but for once again, hopefully saving my life. One can never be too confident in circumstances like this, but we all believe that Dr Tim has saved the day… So finger’s crossed for now.
Julian Lennon is also the half-brother of Sean Ono Lennon, who was born 13-years after him, following John splitting up from Cynthia in 1968 and marrying Yoko Ono the following year.
Last summer, Sean took to social media to urge fans not to compare the two of them, sharing that there is nothing but love between them.
“Here, we do not accept comparisons and erroneous creations of fights about two people that John Lennon loved the most: his children,” Sean wrote, sharing a black-and-white photo of him and Julian together.
That post came shortly after Julian claimed that he is not part of The Beatles‘ “inner circle” and said that he is often one of the last to hear any news about the band. “I’m thankful that Sean and I get on like a house on fire – we’re best buddies and he tells me what he can, but things are pretty secret on the Beatles front,” he said at the time.
Before then, Julian spoke about his relationship with Sean in 2023, saying that rumours of an alleged feud between them were “such bull” and adding that they had “never had a fight in our life.”
Julian has also shared his thoughts on the classic Beatles song ‘Hey Jude’ in the past, which was written by Paul McCartney in 1968 about John’s break-up with Julian’s mother, Cynthia – revealing that he’d been “driven up the wall” by it.
He also said before then that he had a “love-hate” relationship with the classic track, as it felt like a “stark and dark reminder” of what had happened between his parents.
