Chema Ríos from La Coruña

Chema Ríos from La Coruña

This is an old photo of Chema Ríos from La Coruña, Spain when he was in his teens. He is a fan of the Beatles, amateur musician and has been working as a gynecologist.

For some reason or other, the internet thinks that this is a photo of John Lennon aged 13, in Liverpool, England. Why do they all think it is? And where did it start? Somewhere on the internet, this photo of Chema was posted with a caption indicating that it’s a young John Lennon. And someone believed it and spread it. It’s now all over the internet, especially on Pinterest but also elsewhere with the wrong caption. I’m just afraid that In 20 years time it will be the gospel, because more people have repeated it. Just try an image search yourself: Click the photo, then right-click it and choose Google’s image search.

John Lennon still had no guitar at age 13, he would not have known the chord seen in the photo and he did not have a Beatles haircut.

John Lennon with his group The Quarry Men in Liverpool, July 6, 1957. John’s age: 16.

Here is a photo from an event with Chema’s group: Chema Ríos, Carlos Otero, Ramón Sánchez & Miguel Ríos. (between 11 & 13 years old) at Colegio La Salle Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

And here is a latter day photo of Chema Ríos, taken in 2018. He also has a Facebook page.

Chema Ríos in 2018

Now, why am I posting this? Because now, every time you come across a photo of young Chema Ríos on the internet wrongly captioned as John Lennon, you can post a link to this very blog post to inform the uninformed.