Sir Paul McCartney (Photo: Live4ever Media)
Sir Paul McCartney has defended the role of Yoko Ono in the break-up of The Beatles during an interview with David Frost, according to The Guardian.
The newspaper has seen extracts from the interview ahead of its airing later this month, and reveals that during the chat McCartney refutes the widely held belief that Yoko Ono’s relationship with John Lennon was the main factor in The Beatles eventually splitting in 1970.
“She certainly didn’t break the group up, the group was breaking up,” McCartney says. “When Yoko came along, part of her attraction was her avant garde side, her view of things, so she showed him another way to be, which was very attractive to him. So it was time for John to leave, he was definitely going to leave one way or another.”
Instead, Sir Paul points to the influence of Allen Klein – whose disputed role within the band’s business interests following the untimely death of Brian Epstein was a constant source of significant friction between McCartney and his three bandmates – as a far bigger factor in their break-up.
“I was fighting against the other three guys who’d been my lifelong soul buddies,” he continues. “I said I wanted to fight Klein.”