Paul McCartney Says Yoko Ono Shouldn't Be Blamed For Beatles Break-Up

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For more than four decades, a healthy percentage of Beatles fans have been blaming Yoko Ono for breaking the Fab Four up. To Paul McCartney, that animosity has always seemed a bit misdirected. He was never a fan of Lennon’s future wife sitting in on recording sessions, but apparently, the person who did more damage to the chemistry between the Beatles was actually business executive Allen Klein.

In an hour long interview with David Frost for Al Jazeera English set to air later this year, McCartney claims Klein, who became a sort of manager after Brian Epstein died, was the one who set him against the other three guys. The real tension and anxiety arose through him, whereas Yoko just realigned John’s priorities a bit and pushed him into a more avant garde direction.

Here’s a portion of his actual quote about Yoko, as per The Guardian…

”I don't think he would have (written “Imagine”) without Yoko, so I don't think you can blame her for anything. 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.”

It’s highly unlikely most Beatles fans will change their opinions of Yoko overnight thanks to McCartney’s interview, but hopefully, it will remind people that the situation was far more complicated than it’s often given credit for. The guys churned out so much music in such a short amount of time. They were bound to get on each other’s nerves. The great crime is actually that Lennon was murdered before they could properly mend the fences and go back out on tour one more time.

Mack Rawden
Editor In Chief

Mack Rawden is the Editor-In-Chief of CinemaBlend. He first started working at the publication as a writer back in 2007 and has held various jobs at the site in the time since including Managing Editor, Pop Culture Editor and Staff Writer. He now splits his time between working on CinemaBlend’s user experience, helping to plan the site’s editorial direction and writing passionate articles about niche entertainment topics he’s into. He graduated from Indiana University with a degree in English (go Hoosiers!) and has been interviewed and quoted in a variety of publications including Digiday. Enthusiastic about Clue, case-of-the-week mysteries, a great wrestling promo and cookies at Disney World. Less enthusiastic about the pricing structure of cable, loud noises and Tuesdays.