Sean Ono Lennon gave a special shoutout to his mom from the Oscars stage Sunday night. As the 88-year-old son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono took accepted his very first Academy Award for Best Short Film (Animated) for THE WAR IS OVER! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko at the 2024 Oscars, Sean got the entire audience to wish his mother a Happy Mother’s Day.
“My mother turned 91 this February and today is Mother’s Day in the U.K., so could everyone say Happy Mother’s Day, Yoko,” Sean said into the mic as the music signaling for them to wrap up their acceptance began to play. The audience at the Dolby Theatre, where the annual ceremony was held, then joined in, saying, “Happy Mother’s Day, Yoko!”
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Sean is the only child of Ono and the Beatles founding member, who were married for 13 years before John’s death in 1980. Ono is also mom to a daughter, Kyoko Chan Cox, whom she shares with her ex-husband, film producer Anthony Cox. John, meanwhile, also had a son, Julian Lennon, from his marriage to his first wife Cynthia.
Sean has followed in his father’s musical footsteps as a musician and actor, and has also composed several film scores. He attended the Oscars Sunday night as an executive producer of War Is Over, an animated short following two soldiers on opposite sides of World War I as they play a chess game through a carrier pigeon delivering their moves. The 11-minute animated short is inspired by and set to Lennon and Ono’s 50-year-old classic song “Happy Xmas (War Is Over).”
“It’s not about mining the past… You’re competing with generations of people who have not grown up with the same culture and art that most people my age and older take for granted. So, for me, it’s very important that the message of peace and love, which may be a trope, are not forgotten,” Sean previously told The New York Times of the short. “What I don’t want is for my mother and father’s work to disappear with the sands of time.”
Sean was joined onstage Sunday night by the animated short film’s director, Dave Mullins, and producer Brad Booker. Accepting the award, Booker said, “John Lennon and Yoko Ono wrote a song that inspired us that is an anti-war message that we tried to honor with this film.” He added that Sean “was incredible to work with.”
