A DENTIST who bought John Lennon's tooth for £20,000 is on the hunt for potential love children of the late Beatles star.
Dr Michael Zuk destroyed the decaying gnasher to extract DNA - which is being used for comparative testing.
Lennon - who was assassinated 44 years ago today - had a son with each of his two wives.
But as women threw themselves at him during the height of Beatlemania and contraception not widely used in the 1960s, it is believed he could have unknowingly fathered more children.
Dr Zuk bought Lennon's tooth for £20,000 more than a decade ago and is on a mission to find potential love children of the Beautiful Boy singer.
He snapped up the tooth by telephone bid in 2011 - and included in the quirky purchase was believed to be one of his son Julian's baby teeth.
But testing showed it was another of legendary songwriter Lennon's molars - and pictures reveal how it matches one that was missing in the upper left of his mouth.
Do you believe you could be John Lennon's child? Email [email protected] or WhatsApp 07592 368604
Dad-of-two Dr Zuk, from Alberta, Canada, said that tooth is critical to his mission - which could see any confirmed love children able to claim a slice of the Liverpudlian's £490 million estate.
Dr Zuk, who was born three months before The Beatles’ first single Love Me Do was released, had the gnasher ground down and treated to extract DNA.
It is now just dust - which is being used for comparative testing.
Lennon welcomed son Julian with his first wife Cynthia Powell in 1963.
He then had another son Sean, who was born on the star's birthday in 1975, with second wife Yoko Ono in 1975.
But Dr Zuk believes Lennon could have fathered more offspring unbeknownst to him.
He previously told The Sun: "It's no secret the Beatles were all popular with the ladies.
"Hush money was discussed in various books and while mothers may have been silenced and compensated this does not address a child's potential rights.
"Seeing the tooth for sale was a lifetime opportunity for me."
Dr Zuk, who is retired and splits most of his time between Mexico and the US, is now hunting for potential heirs for testing.
Lennon was killed by gunman Mark David Chapman on December 8, 1980, outside the New York apartment he shared with Ono.
But his estate - managed solely by his widow Japanese-born artist Ono, 91, before she handed the reigns to their son Sean, 49 - is understood to be worth more than £490 million.
The hitmaker's estate is still raking it in and in 2019 it was reported Lennon was the world's seventh top-earning dead celebrity.
Dr Zuk, which actually means "beetle" in Ukrainian, said should he achieve the unimaginable and find a Lennon love child, he will want part of their inheritance.
He added: "There seems to be some expectation that I should be paying for people's comparative testing - but that's not what I'm offering.
"My intention is to work with a paternity lawyer and have a fee attached to a successful match and settlement from the estate.
"A New York City lawyer stated he was interested in collaborating."
Dr Zuk's antics haven't gone unnoticed by Ono, who previously sent him a legal letter after he claimed he was interested in cloning the Scouser.
But he said the idea of cloning Lennon wasn't exactly serious, and more out of his frustration at how his son Julian, 61, was treated.
Musician Julian and Ono were embroiled in a lengthy legal wrangle in the 1990 over Lennon's estate.
He was abandoned by troubled songwriter Lennon in the 1960s and only received a small portion of his father's estate when Ono settled out of court almost 20 years after his murder.
Dr Zuk said: "I did get a legal warning from Yoko 'not to clone' John Lennon, but it wasn't a serious project.
"I only heard of the mammoth cloning and thought it would be an interesting idea to propose.
"The idea of cloning came to me as a scientific possibility with interesting futuristic legal arguments - beyond what current laws even consider.
"If the Beatle was cloned, it could be argued he would have a right to part of his estate.
"This was for theoretical banter and perhaps was taken too seriously at the time.
"But it was a wake-up call to the estate that the tooth could be upsetting their control.
"Most Lennon fans were likely irritated by the way Julian was treated by the estate and it seems unfair."
Lennon was gunned down by crazed fan Mark David Chapman on December 8, 1980.
JOHN Lennon was fatally shot on December 8, 1980, at the age of 40.
Mark David Chapman, a disgruntled fan, fired five shots - four of which hit Lennon in the back.
Chapman, who had got Lennon's autograph earlier that day, waited calmly for the police to arrive.
His motives stemmed from a mixture of resentment towards Lennon's lifestyle and pronouncements, including the musician's controversial “more popular than Jesus” remark.
Chapman also claimed to be inspired by Holden Caulfield, the protagonist of J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye.
Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival at Roosevelt Hospital.
Vigils and memorials were held across the world after the loss of the iconic Beatle.
Chapman pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was given a 20-year prison sentence.
He remains incarcerated, having been repeatedly denied parole.
Chapman appeared before the parole board in March this year, where is was again denied.
The killer is set to have his fourteenth hearing in August 2025.
The senseless killing came just hours after Lennon signed a copy of his recently released album Double Fantasy for Chapman.
Lennon and Ono were returning to their Upper West Side apartment when Chapman, who was lying in wait, fired five bullets as they entered the Dakota building archway.
Four of the five hit him square in the back.
Chapman, who had been enraged by Lennon's infamous comment in 1966 that the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus", sat reading a paperback copy of The Catcher in the Rye until he was arrested.
He claimed he had been inspired by the protagonist of the J D Salinger novel, Holden Caulfield, who despised hypocrisy.
But the prosecution claimed Chapman simply wished to be famous.
In one confession, he said: “I thought I would turn into somebody if I killed somebody.”
Chapman was sentenced to 20 years to life imprisonment - and has been denied parole 13 times since he became eligible in 2000.
