Kyoko Chan Cox, the only daughter of artist Yoko Ono and stepdaughter of John Lennon, now works as an artist, educator, and former actress, living a private life in Denver, Colorado, after spending much of her childhood hidden from her mother inside a religious cult. Now 62, she has deliberately stepped away from the spotlight, focusing on teaching, darkroom photography, and non-profit work rather than the entertainment industry her parents inhabited.
Her extraordinary story returned to public focus in 2025 with the release of the documentary One to One: John & Yoko, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in August 2024 and received a theatrical rollout in April 2025.
Early Life and Family Background
Kyoko Chan Cox was born on 8 August 1963 in Tokyo, Japan, to Yoko Ono and American film producer and art promoter Anthony Cox. Her parents married on 11 June 1963, just two months before her birth. The couple had first married in November 1962, but that marriage was annulled in March 1963 because Ono had not officially finalised her divorce from her first husband, composer Toshi Ichiyanagi.
Yoko Ono has two biological children: Kyoko and her younger half-brother Sean Taro Ono Lennon, born in 1975 to Ono and John Lennon. Kyoko's father, Anthony D. Cox, was born in 1937 and met Ono in 1961 after seeing her artwork in an anthology and locating her in Tokyo.
The Custody Battle and Years in Hiding
Cox and Ono divorced on 2 February 1969. By 1970, Cox had married an American woman named Melinda Kendall and moved with Kyoko to Denmark. After a legal battle, the court awarded custody of Kyoko to Ono. However, in 1971, Cox — who had joined a Christian cult known as the Church of the Living Word, or "The Walk" — vanished with his wife and Kyoko in violation of the custody order.
When the Lennons were on the verge of winning custody after agreeing to raise Kyoko in America, Cox fled with the eight-year-old on Christmas Eve, 1971. Kyoko spent her formative years hidden in a religious community in Iowa and California, where she was given a new identity: Ruth Holman. She lived a quiet, secluded life, attending school under that name.
Kyoko told the Daily Mail: "When people hear about my story, they don't understand what it was like before Facebook. There's my mom and John doing all these things to appeal to me. It makes me sound heartless. But I was living on a farm in Iowa. We didn't own a TV. And a lot of people don't understand that there's a lifestyle like that."
Cox eventually left "The Walk" after a few years, and in 1978, he and Kyoko stayed with the Jesus People USA commune in Chicago.
Reconnection and Relationship with Yoko Ono
For two decades, Ono fought and spent a fortune to find her daughter. Her song Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow) was inspired by the custody fight. When John Lennon was murdered in 1980, Yoko received a telegram expressing condolences, signed by Kyoko and Tony.
In 1994, when she was 31, Kyoko decided to re-establish contact with Ono, and the two have maintained their relationship since then. Ono reflected in 2003: "When Kyoko finally appeared, I was totally in shock. It felt like the part of me that was missing came back." A friend told biographer David Sheff: "When Kyoko came back, Yoko was the most whole since John was killed." According to Kyoko, she viewed her father as "impossible," "self-deluded," and a "major narcissist."
Career and Current Life
Kyoko keeps a low profile, living mainly in Denver, Colorado, and occasionally spending time in New York, where her passion for art was sparked early on by a Polaroid camera her mother gave her. After finishing college in Chicago, she moved to Colorado to work for a non-profit and later took on teaching roles. She taught darkroom photography, a skill she honed under the guidance of film artist and historian Standish Lawder at the now-closed Denver Darkroom. Over the years, she has been involved in advocacy and philanthropy, although specific details about her career remain sparse.
Early in her career, Kyoko appeared in Bed Peace (1969), The Real Yoko Ono (2001), No. 4 (1966), and 3 Days in the Life (1970). These appearances were largely tied to her mother's creative orbit rather than an independent acting career.
The 2025 documentary One to One: John & Yoko, co-directed by Kevin Macdonald and Sam Rice-Edwards, draws fresh attention to Kyoko's story. In it, Ono admits to being an "offbeat mother," bringing Kyoko onstage as a baby and to Montreal for Lennon's peace "bed-in" when Kyoko was only four. Years earlier, Anthony Cox produced an autobiographical 1985 documentary titled Vain Glory, with Kyoko credited as co-producer.
Net Worth and Public Profile
Kyoko Chan Cox has an alleged net worth of $1 million to $5 million, earning income through acting, teaching, and multimedia artistic work. However, because she does not publicly disclose earnings from her artistic projects, this figure is difficult to verify precisely. A December 2025 piece in Little Village Magazine shed further light on the Iowa cult community where Kyoko spent years hidden from the world.
