"Bohemians should try everything," the book quotes Lennon as saying in the unsuccessful bid.

McCartney and Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, are reportedly outraged by the claim, and Ono has withdrawn her endorsement of the book, Philip Norman's John Lennon: In the Life.

"...it would have been a lot more believable if [McCartney's former wife] Heather Mills had been on the scene in the sixties," quipped Holy Moly!. "She's enough to turn anyone gay."