Yoko Ono's daughter was kidnapped, raised in cult — and didn't reunite with her mom for decades
Kyoko Ono is speaking out over a traumatic time in her life.
After she was kidnapped at seven years old by her dad, Anthony Cox, her mom Yoko Ono and her step-father John Lennon moved to New York City in hopes of locating her. However, it wasn't until she was 30 years old that she picked up the phone and called her mother, now 92.
'When people hear about my story, they don't understand what it was like before Facebook,' Kyoko, 61, revealed to the Daily Mail. 'There's my mom and John doing all these things to appeal to me.'
However, she had no idea about the search that was underway for her, and instead, grew up in a cult.
Cox, who was Ono's second husband, kidnapped Kyoko during their custody battle when he violated a court order.
'It makes me sound heartless. But I was living on a farm in Iowa,' Kyoko continued to the outlet. 'We didn't own a TV. And a lot of people don't understand that there's a lifestyle like that.'
By that time, Ono had remarried Lennon, the Beatles singer and guitarist who was assassinated in Decemebr 1980.
In 1971, Cox and his new wife Melinda Kendall took Kyoko to Spain, and enrolled her in a meditation preschool in Majorca. Ono found out about the move through her lawyers, in which she and Lennon immediately flew to Spain to pick up Kyoko from school.
They were then arrested in their hotel room for kidnapping.
Kyoko and her parents ended up going to court, in which the judge asked the child who she wanted to live with. Although she didn't want to chose, the judge insisted.
'So, I said my dad, and my mom was upset… I felt like I had an impossible choice to make.'
As for her reasoning, Kyoko said, 'My mom and John were incredibly busy people. Usually when I went and stayed with them, I had a nanny, and I sometimes wouldn't see them all day long. And [with] my dad and my stepmother, I'm their only child.'
Cox eventually took Kyoko back to the United States. and on Christmas Eve 1971, despite Ono having visitation rights, he refused to bring Kyoko to her mother.
'When we left Houston, we were on the lam,' Kyoko admitted. 'And we went to Los Angeles and we went to a church connected with our church in Houston… and they took us in for a short period of time.'
'Then [the congregation] told us, 'We've prayed about it and you really need to return Kyoko to her mother,' which was not what my dad wanted to hear.'
Cox then moved his family into The Living Word Fellowship – which was cult dismembered in 2018 due to sexual misconduct allegations.
'Today, as an adult, the biggest irony to me is we left a cult, in a way, when we left the Beatles and John and Yoko. People are fanatical [about them] on the level of being cult members,' explained Kyoko.
'I was very scared by that fame,' she remembered. 'So being in this very simple Christian community seemed very safe, like an easier life.'
During that time in her life, Kyoko said they never talked about her mom or Lennon, but she said 'there were so many times that I said to my dad, 'I really want to get back in touch with my mom.''
Then, after growing up, getting married in 1992 to Jim Helfrich and becoming a teacher, Kyoko decided to call Ono.
'By that point, I'd been teaching at public school for six years,' she recounted. 'And I really understood kids and families better than my parents ever had. She wanted to see me right away and then we just started spending time together.'
These days, Kyoko lives a quiet life outside of the spotlight. She and Helfrich, who she divorced in 2018, share kids Emi, 27, and John, 25.
However, Kyoko wants to be able to set the record straight on her life, and her mom and step-dad's relationship. Ono and Lennon went on to have one son together, Sean, 49. He was also dad to son Julian, 62, with ex-wife Cynthia Lennon.
'I'm not really interested in being a public figure,' admitted Kyoko. 'But I am also my mom's daughter, and I want the story to be told properly.'
She has also forgave the adults who were supposed to protect her.
'They were all such kids,' stated Kyoko. 'They were just like little children, all of them. It's really crazy. Being a parent – it's a hard thing to do.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
33 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Local woman trying to recover mom's Facebook account after stranger memorializes it
A Facebook account full of family memories was memorialized by a stranger without the family's knowledge. Now, a woman is fighting for access to her mom's account. [DOWNLOAD: Free WHIO-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] News Center 7's Taylor Robertson meets with Hannah Couch and learns about how much this profile means to her and her family LIVE on News Center 7 at 11. Couch says her mom, Soni May Shaw, used Facebook like a scrapbook, and now those memories are gone. TRENDING STORIES: 6-year-old boy dies after drowning in Butler County City says arbitrator ignored 'simply obvious dangers' by reinstating fired police sergeant Suspect in murder of local 32-year-old father arrested in Kentucky 'My mom, she was incredible. I don't think I've ever met someone who didn't love her,' Couch said. 'She was diagnosed with cancer in June of 2023 and it started in her lungs. She has the BRCA gene, and it mutated to an untreatable and incurable brain cancer.' Shaw passed away last summer. 'She was a photographer, softball mom, a great grandma,' Couch said. 'She was actually kind of getting popular on TikTok out of nowhere. She posted, like, easy Sunday game day recipes to feed a family, because Sundays were her thing.' After her mom passed, Couch found comfort reading through old posts. One day, she went to check her mom's profile and it was memorialized. 'The only thing that I can see is my memories that she's tagged me in or stuff that I've tagged her in,' Couch said. Couch says she was shocked, and she immediately tried to find who had memorialized the page, but no one came forward. 'Somebody took that away from us,' Couch said. It made Couch curious. How simple is it to convince Facebook someone is dead? 'I made a fake Facebook. I made myself the legacy contact and then I reported it to memorialize it,' Couch said. 'I found some old lady picture on Facebook, made it her profile picture, I put her picture with a ChatGPT obituary and all you have to do- you don't have to be logged into Facebook- I just went ahead through a Safari browser, report - memorialized.' Couch says she has reached out to Facebook nine times since May and has only gotten one response. 'They basically told me that there was nothing that they could do. It was irreversible and once it's done, it's done,' Couch said. 'It's cruel and Facebook has to do something about it.' News Center 7 reached out to Facebook to see if it's possible to recover Couch's mother's profile, but we have not heard back. Couch says she is considering legal action, but she hopes it doesn't come to that. [SIGN UP: WHIO-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
NC, SC attorneys general among those urging Meta to crack down on deceptive ‘pump and dump' Facebook ads
RALEIGH, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) – North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson is among 42 across the country urging Meta to crack down on deceptive ads. The joint letter claims the social media giant is allowing these so-called 'pump and dump' schemes on Facebook, conning users out of hundreds of millions of dollars. 'Scammers are using fake Facebook ads to trick people into losing millions in scam investments,' said Jackson in a statement. 'It's Meta's job to take these ads down and make sure their platform is as safe as possible for users everywhere. Meta needs to act now.' Consultant behind AI-generated robocalls mimicking Biden goes on trial in New Hampshire Jackson's office says these ads frequently use images of well-known financial figures like Warren Buffet, Cathie Wood and Elon Musk to make users think they're legitimate. They'll advertise stocks with outrageous returns, free consultations, or offer to give investment advice. The AGs claim that clicking on the ads directs users to join a WhatsApp group, where the scammers allegedly urge victims to buy penny stocks to rapidly inflate the share prices. After 'pumping up' the price of the stock, the scammers will 'dump' their shares, causing the prices to fall and leaving victims unable to get their money back. South Carolina AG Alan Wilson is among the co-signers. The letter cites several examples of victims, including a 65-year-old woman who lost her 401(k) to this scheme after clicking on a Facebook ad for what seemed to be a reputable investment management company. And three victims in South Florida spoke to a news outlet reporting direct losses of more than $85,000 and pointing to two-dozen other victims who lost millions more. The attorneys general are asking Meta to either strengthen its advertisement review practices to prevent these ads from being shown to Facebook users or remove all investment ads from the platform. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Indictment: Red Ginger owners employed, harbored undocumented workers
ELIZABETHTON, Tenn. (WJHL) — Red Ginger Buffet Chinese restaurant was open and busy Wednesday, a week after its owners were arrested on federal felony charges for allegedly harboring, concealing and employing four undocumented workers. Federal documents show Xiong Wei Yang and Xu Rong Wu face three separate counts related to claims that from May 2023 to March 2025, they not only employed the four but also 'engaged in a conspiracy, knowing and in reckless disregard' of the fact that the employees were in the U.S. illegally. Greene Co. sheriff explains 287(g) partnership with ICE The two were released on a $20,000 bond each. Wu told News Channel 11 she and her husband intend to keep the restaurant open and acknowledged the charges. Meanwhile, several diners said the allegations wouldn't dissuade them from patronizing a restaurant they said has great food and kind, friendly owners. 'We came to support them now that they're back open,' Anna Harrell, who said she favors the crab rangoon, said. The restaurant reopened on Tuesday after being closed for several days. McKenna Cox, a local immigration attorney, said charges of harboring and also of concealing immigrants are increasingly being leveled against employers, including smaller businesses. 'That's not historically something that's been pursued aggressively by the federal government outside of a human trafficking context, at least in recent years,' Cox said. 'So this focus on the harboring statute is something that's come to popularity fairly recently.' Social media reports of Department of Homeland Security vehicles 'raiding' the restaurant last week turned out to have some basis in truth. The department is listed as the arresting agent in court filings. Cox said the key to the government's case is the harboring allegation, which she said has been interpreted in various ways across the country. The indictment's first count claims the couple 'did conceal, harbor, and shield from detection such aliens in buildings and other places for the purpose of commercial advantage and private financial gain.' The second count alleges the defendants 'encouraged and induced' the four immigrants to come to enter and live in the U.S., 'knowing and in reckless disregard' that action violated the law. The third count alleges 'a pattern and practice of hiring' unauthorized aliens. 'It remains to be seen what the proof is and the evidence may be in any given case, and certainly in the case of our friends at Red Ginger, whether or not that can be proven by the federal government and that legal standard can be met,' Cox said. 'There's a lot of room for maneuvering and interpretation legally in this case and in cases like it.' Cox said news reports and communication among immigration advocates have shown an uptick in enforcement actions — though she acknowledged work on this case could have preceded the more aggressive enforcement implemented by President Donald Trump starting in January. 'Right now we're seeing a focus on restaurateurs and restaurants in our area and throughout the Southeast,' she said. 'We're also seeing a focus on construction sites. We're seeing a focus on any location where we frequently have undocumented folks or immigrants working in those industries.' Cox thinks prosecution could be as much of a focus as gaining convictions. 'This type of arrest, this type of prosecution is a message to anyone who employs undocumented workers, if they know that they're undocumented or people who may have entered the country unlawfully and don't have a current, valid legal status.' Raids have occurred in the past, but Cox said typically they've involved sites employing large numbers of staff. And she said the law gets stricter when 10 or more people are involved. 'I can imagine that it has a chilling effect on local businesses, on small businesses, on family-run businesses that we in America are very proud to have and we want to encourage,' she said. Cox said finding people willing to do some less-than-attractive work, like that common in restaurants, has gotten harder for employers since the COVID-19 pandemic. 'There probably is an increased reliance on immigrant labor for folks who really will consistently come to work and are willing to do some jobs that perhaps U.S. citizens are not super excited about taking and working in,' she said. As Cox pointed out, though, the federal government is trying to prove Red Ginger's owners violated federal law. Guilty pleas or verdicts could result in imprisonment, fines or both. The allegations won't be enough to keep Anna Harrell and her husband away. Sam Padgett, who said he pops over several times a week from his job at a nearby Lowe's to enjoy the buffet, said the same. 'They know me in there,' Padgett said. 'They're really nice. And I'm a fan of Chinese food, and this place is rated really highly, so it's been busy lately.' Cox thinks some Northeast Tennesseans may be in for a surprise concerning immigration enforcement actions, but also thinks people are on alert given the 'front and center' coverage of ICE raids, protests and related stories. 'Regardless of whether you support or don't support those actions, it is very much in our zeitgeist and in our national mindset, and so I think that to see it locally brings it home,' she said. 'I think people are like, 'Oh, you know, I didn't maybe expect to see that here,' but we're seeing it here. It's happening here … It's not just happening across the country in another place, and it does affect our local businesses and it does affect our friends and neighbors.'Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
