Frederic Seaman

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Frederic ("Fred") Seaman was a personal assistant to John Lennon and Yoko Ono, during the former Beatle's final years, when Lennon and Ono lived in The Dakota in New York City.

Seaman was first introduced to the Lennons through a relative in 1978. John was in need of a personal assistant at the time and there were several factors in Seaman's favor which helped him land the job. First, Seaman was primarily a jazz fan and knew little about John's Beatle past. Yoko, according to Seaman's book, performed a numerology reading on Seaman and found him to be promising in that respect. And John liked the idea that Fred's last name - sea-man - related to John's own father, Freddy Lennon, who was a life-long sailor in the merchant marine; literally a "sea man." During the approximately 24 months that Seaman worked at the Dakota, Lennon publicly credited him for first introducing him to the music of The B-52's, a band that Lennon felt certain had been inspired by Yoko Ono's widely derided "music," and mentioned him by name in his last interviews for BBC Radio and RKO Radio. Seaman was also given a credit in the liner notes to Double Fantasy.

After Lennon's assassination on December 8, 1980, Seaman took several items from the Lennons' apartment, including Lennon's personal diaries, claiming later he'd made a promise to John that he would deliver them to Julian Lennon in the event of his death.

Seaman later wrote the controversial "tell all" book The Last Days of John Lennon: A Personal Memoir, an account of his time as Lennon's aide. (The book was initially published as John Lennon, Living on Borrowed Time: A Personal Memoir.) The book was considered controversial by many fans and Lennon observers due to its contrasting view of Lennon and Ono's idealized marriage and glimpses he offered into the secluded and often unhappy life Lennon lived inside the Dakota apartments. Seaman also failed, in publishing his story, to abide by the terms of the non-disclosure agreement he signed when commencing his time in the Lennon's employ.

According to Albert Goldman's even more controversial biography The Lives of John Lennon, Seaman was indicted for the theft of the John Lennon diaries - which have never been published in any form - in 1983 and sentenced to five years' probation. In 2002, Seaman also lost a long and contentious court battle against Yoko Ono for copyright control of more than 300 photos Seaman took with a camera the Lennon's owned during his employ.