They just saw a face and knew it was their mother.
The mystery behind “Adrienne from Brooklyn,” the Beatles fan girl Paul McCartney posted about last week, was solved over the weekend after her children decided to answer the legendary singer-songwriter’s shout-out.
“Paul McCartney, if you are listening, Adrienne from Brooklyn loves you with all her heart,” the teen said in a 1964 interview that picked up traction online after it was featured in Ron Howard’s 2016 documentary “Eight Days A Week.”
McCartney took to social media on May 3 and finally responded to Adrienne’s interview, taken on the cusp of “Beatlemania” arriving in the U.S. some six decades ago.
“Hey Adrienne, It’s Paul. Listen, I saw your video, I’m in Brooklyn now, I’m in New York. I finally got here. We got a photo exhibition, come along and see it,” McCartney said, inviting her to his new photography exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum.
The shout-out from McCartney renewed interest among Beatles fans on the current whereabouts of the mega fan, with a slew of internet sleuths answering Brooklyn Paper’s call to help track down the Brooklynite.
Among them was Nicole Panepinto, who told Brooklyn Paper that she first identified “Adrienne from Brooklyn” as her mother in 2016 when her brother saw the now-infamous clip in Howard’s Hulu documentary.
“Johnny is the one who found it and showed it to us. And I was like, wow, that’s our mother. That’s mommy,” Nicole said. “It was just a fun little thing for us, we got out photos and reminscised.”
Unaware of the online chatter surrounding Adrienne’s identity, the siblings kept the story mostly to themselves and their family. None of the siblings are on social media much, Nicole noted.
But after McCartney’s video was posted Friday, they saw it as a sign from their mother to respond publicly, and uploaded their first TikTok over the weekend. The video has since garnered more than 2.3 million views.
“She would be freaking out,” Nicole said of the McCartney shout-out. “She would be saying, ‘Adrienne from Brooklyn still loves you,’ in her bubbly manner.”
Born and raised in Bensonhurst by a single mother, Adrienne D’Onofrio was the youngest of three siblings — both of whom were married with children at the arrival of Beatlemania.
Given the age gap, Adrienne was close friends with her niece, Anne-Marie. The pair would often go to concerts and bond over their love of the fab four. Anne-Marie is still in possession of Adrienne’s commemorative Beatles coins from that time, Nicole said.
While Beatlemania never ended for the Brooklynite, life went on. Adrienne married in 1967 and had four children — Johnny, Orsola, Jacqueline and Nicole — with her husband, Harry.
“They were a young love, and had this young family, and their cousins would look up to them and say their house was the fun house, the music house,” said Nicole. “They lived their youth through music, that’s what kept them youthful.”
Adrienne went back to school to get her GED before later going to Kingsborough College, where she was working towards becoming a teacher. However, she was diagnosed with lymphoma and died in 1992 at the age of 41.
Adrienne’s eldest, Johnny, still has his mother’s original Beatles records, which are adorned with scribblings like “Adrienne loves Paul.”
According to Orsola, whose daughter is named Adrienne, her mother’s favorite Beatle song was likely “All You Need Is Love” because it was the mantra she lived by.
“She would reinforce that nothing matters more than the love we have for each other, that was her big thing,” Orsola told Brooklyn Paper. “I remember when I was little, my mother used to always have the Beatles songs on the record player, whether she was cleaning or whether she was just hanging out in the house.”
Now officially immortalized as “Adrienne from Brooklyn,” she will always be simply “mom” to Johnny, Orsola, Jacqueline and Nicole.
“She was just your all-in mom. She was always there for us. And not only was she our mother, she was everyone’s mother,” Nicole said. “Everyone knew if they had an issue to come to Adrienne’s house.”
“Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm,” is open now through Aug. 18. It features hundreds of photographs captured by McCartney through the lens of his Pentax film camera as he navigated the superstardom of Beatlemania and the Beatles’ first US tour throughout the early 1960s.
The siblings plan to visit the exhibition as a family soon.
“Our mother did pass away so long ago, and having this come up now makes a connection with our children, her grandchildren and her,” Nicole said. “It’s a nice heartwarming story.”
