Paul McCartney Recalls ‘Painful Period' of His Friendship With John Lennon

Once they were the ‘it' pair, and suddenly they weren't.

With around 180 songwriting credits, the Beatles' Paul McCartney and John Lennon were the hottest pair in pop culture in the 1960s.

However, at the height of Beatlemania, the two musical geniuses gradually grew apart, ultimately leading to the breakup of the Beatles, which also included George Harrison and Ringo Starr as its esteemed members.

Now, more than five decades after the breakup, and 45 years after Lennon's death, McCartney is recalling the "painful period" of his friendship with the "Instant Karma!" hitmaker.

McCartney, now 83, recently talked about the "hurtful" period in his friendship with Lennon in an interview with NME.

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The rift between the duo predominantly started over the appointment of new management of the Beatles. While McCartney was backing his father-in-law, Lee Eastman, the other members were in support of Allen Klein. The discontent grew when McCartney refused to sign the agreement, ultimately leading to the dissolution of the band in 1974.

Nevertheless, McCartney, who recently released his latest solo album, "The Boys of Dungeon Lake," shared that his memories of Lennon remain "very good." However, the duo had to weather a storm before going into that place.

McCartney admitted it was quite "hurtful" to be at the receiving end of his friend's criticism.

“It was just annoying, because you thought, ‘I’ve got to answer him back, what am I going to do?’ But I suddenly realized, ‘Wait a minute, this is John. This is the guy I’ve known since I was 16. That’s just what he does.’ It didn’t sting so much once I realized it was just John being John.”

However, a year after the band's breakup, the two musicians patched up their friendship in 1975 over the simple joys of life, which included parenting. Now, several years later, the "Ever Present Past" singer admitted that they had to go through the rough period in order to come out victorious later.

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“Even though it was a painful period, we kinda had to go through it, or someone would have robbed us,” reflected McCartney.

He further added, “I was lucky because we’d been separated because of the business trouble and stuff, and John eventually came round to my way of thinking that the guy they wanted to bring in [Allen Klein] was a crook.

“I’d suffered because they all thought I was the nutter, I was the crook.”

As it's said, all's well that ends well; McCartney reflected that all was worthwhile as even Lennon acknowledged that his friend's deductions might have been true after all.

The "Another Day" singer reminisced, “It was good to hear John say, ‘I think Paul might have been right’ begrudgingly.

“He wasn’t one to say, ‘Yeah, you know what Paul told me…!’ He was like, "Yeah, he was right.’ So that made it much better."

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This story was originally published June 5, 2026 at 7:01 PM.