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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Publicist’s Book Rocks Music World

Westlake Village publicist Debra Sharon Davis seems to have whipped up a storm with her new book “Back Stage Pass VIP” with its shocking claim that John Lennon was a bulimic. The online world of celebrity news and gossip has been abuzz about the 278-page e-book and the bombshell it dropped about Lennon; even Howard Stern gave the book a nod and Yoko Ono has been forced to respond, denying the allegation. All the talk has led some to ask if Davis’s book is for real or just a stab at bestseller status. Davis, who traveled as a young journalist with the Rolling Stones in the ‘80s, got the idea for the book after friends suggested that she turn the 800 pages of notes she kept from those days into a book. When she revisited those notes, hidden for 20 years in her garage, she found a treasure-trove: interviews with Lennon’s close friend, the late singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson, who talked to Davis about Lennon. “He saw him forcing himself to vomit at recording sessions,” Davis said about Nilsson. “He told people, ‘I love to eat but hate being full.’ With a 21st century perspective, Davis said, we now know what those symptoms were. Back then, “there wasn’t even a name for it,” she said. Davis, who owns Davis Group and Davis Communications Inc., said it was not her intent to “ignite a controversy.” She said her conclusions are backed up by multiple sources and supported by external research with psychologists and eating disorder experts who looked at her notes and agreed with her conclusions. “I have great respect for Yoko Ono,” she said, “but I also have an obligation to show that there is no shame in having an eating disorder. It doesn’t make him less of a man; it makes him human.” Her intent, she said, was to show the human side of celebrities and that, “it’s OK to be a flawed hero…we do a service when we say heroes are not perfect.” — Judy Temes

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