In 1963, while Sonnie was married to photographer Robert Freeman (who had recently begun his professional relationship with the Beatles), John Lennon was looking for a home to rent in London for himself, his wife Cynthia and baby son Julian. Freeman suggested that the couple take a flat in the same building in the South Kensington area of London where he lived in Emporer’s Gate, just off Cromwell Road. Freeman had become a good friend of the Beatles and socialized with them. Author Philip Norman wrote that Sonnie also joined her husband in socializing with John and Cynthia. Sonnie became personally close to John Lennon and they would often stay up late together talking “about things like life death, the way you do when you’re young.”
Philip Norman wrote that Sonnie Freeman conducted a clandestine affair with John Lennon for over a year. The Freemans’ flat was fashionably wood-panelled. When Robert was out and Cynthia upstairs, John would slip downstairs to see Sonnie and they did, indeed, have an affair. He writes that the lyrics of the song “Norwegian Wood” are an implicit reference by Lennon to his alleged affair with Sonnie Freeman.
Robert Freeman eventually became aware of his wife’s affair with John Lennon. Cynthia Lennon wrote in her 2005 book, John:
One evening, not long after we moved to Kenwood, there was a knock at the door. John answered and I stood not far behind him. Bob and Sonnie, the Beatle’s photographer and his wife who had lived below is in Emperor’s Gate, were on the doorstep. Bob looked furious and Sonnie, a stunning Swede (sic), was in tears, cowering behind him. Bob ignored me and said he wanted to talk to John. They all disappeared into the living room. Half an hour later Bob and Sonnie left. When John came back into the kitchen I asked him what had been going on, but he shrugged and disappeared upstairs to this music room. It was never mentioned between us again, but not long afterward I heard that Bob and Sonnie were divorcing. I couldn’t escape the conclusion that she’d had an affair with John, although I never had any proof.
In the 1970s, Robert Freeman divorced her and she subsequently remarried John Drane, taking his last name as her own. She is still married to Drane and is a mother to Janine, Dean, Leah, Lucian and Suki; and grandmother to Cassius, Evie, Sonny and Owain. In recent years she has become an artist and poet.