John Lennon was on a drunken bender in the 1970s during a year and a half separation from Yoko Ono. He was in his early 30s and nearly got the shit kicked out of him for particularly bad – and expensive – behavior. Lennon took a priceless original Matisse painting off the wall at Hugh Hefner’s pad and put out his cigarette on it!

Hef, now 80, recalls how Lennon had accepted an invitation to visit the mansion one Sunday to watch movies and enjoy a Sunday buffet. But because of his personal circumstances, the singer was “in a very bad mood and drinking a good deal.”

Hefner recalls how Lennon “misbehaved a little bit and a couple of my friends took exception to it.

“I didn’t witness it. I was elsewhere in the mansion. He put a cigarette out on a Matisse and one of my friends was gonna…”

Hefner pauses meaningfully and continues: “But he had been drinking. I was a huge fan. He was under a tremendous amount of pressure, very inappropriate pressure, you know, from the government. They were strange times. And Lennon was one of my heroes.”

According to a description of Heffner’s house given by a recent interviewer, the nude painting still hangs in the library of the Playboy mansion – with the cigarette burn clearly visible. I guess if a normal person left a burn in a million plus painting it would destroy the value considerably, but maybe since the legendary Lennon is to blame, the damage is not as great.

Lennon was assisinated on December 8, 1980 at the age of 40.

Header picture from the BBC. Pictures of Hefner at his 81st birthday macking on Paris Hilton and The Hoff from CityRag.