John Lennon said in a chilling phone call 8 years before his tragic murder that he would not let himself be shot

John Lennon spoke about being a victim of gun violence eight years before he was shot and killed.

The new documentary “One to One: John & Yoko” highlights the late Beatles’ Free the People Tour, which they planned with activist Jerry Rubin to raise bail money for inmates who can’t afford bail money.

In one scene, Lennon talks to drummer Jim Keltner on the phone about the risks of getting political during a tour that was to culminate at the Republican Convention in August 1972.

Keltner, now 82, asked Lennon if he had “any apprehensions” about people before the tour.

According to People, Lennon said over the phone, “What people? … You mean people trying to kill us or something? I don’t want to get shot.”

“It will create excitement in its own way. But, you know, I’m still an artist, but a revolutionary artist, right?” the “Imagine” singer said.

In a later scene, Lennon told a journalist that he had begun taping his phone calls out of fear for his life.

“We saw people loitering outside the apartment. And I have a driver, he’s a former police officer. But this car keeps following us all the time,” he said. “So we’re all very nervous.”

Eight years after the phone call with Keltner, Lennon was shot and killed outside his apartment in New York City on December 8, 1980. He was 40.

Prior to his death, Lennon decided to cancel the Free the People Tour.

According to People, the documentary states that Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono had a falling out with Rubin “over the risk of a violent confrontation at the Republican Convention.”

“One to One: John & Yoko” premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Friday and also plays at the Telluride Film Festival this weekend.

Directed by Kevin Macdonald, the project is based on Lennon and Ono’s relocation from London to New York City nine years before his death. It combines archival footage of interviews and phone calls with concert footage and historic video.

In an interview with Deadline, Macdonald said that a producer from Mercury Studios approached him about making the documentary.

“I was a Beatles fan and I particularly liked John, so I was never going to say no,” he said. “But I felt there had been so many films about the Beatles and Lennon, how could you say anything new?”

Macdonald added, “I was doing a little research, and I found this quote where John says that when he moved to America, for the first few years all he watched was TV. That quote is the beginning of the film. So I thought it might be interesting to recreate his experience in the early days of living in America, trying to understand this country and how it’s portrayed on television.”

Lennon’s tragic murder remains a shocking event in history.

Mark David Chapman, the man who shot Lennon, is currently serving a 20-years-to-life sentence at Green Haven Correctional Facility in New York’s Hudson Valley.