Paul McCartney (click here for tickets) insists that Yoko Ono was not to blame for the breakup of one of the all-time greatest bands in history. The Beatles broke up in 1970, but it wasn’t because of Ono, according to McCartney. The band had other tensions going on among its members.
In an interview with British journalist, David Frost, that will air next month on English Al Jazeera, McCartney says the band was on the outs before Yoko even came into the picture.
“She certainly didn’t break the group up, the group was breaking up,” McCartney says even though at one point he was upset with her being in a recording studio with the band.
McCartney believes instead of blaming Yoko Ono for something she did not cause, fans should thank her for the inspiration she gave Lennon in his solo career when he created one of the most memorable songs of all-time in “Imagine.”
“I don’t think he would have done that (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,” McCartney told Frost.
Adding, “So it was time for John to leave, he was definitely going to leave.”
So if not Yoko, who should we blame? McCartney says that talent agent Allen Klein deserves more of the credit for the Beatles break-up then anyone else. Klein ended up taking over the band’s business affairs after the departure of their manager Brian Epstein, who died in 1967.
“I was fighting against the other three guys who’d been my lifelong soul buddies,” noted McCartney. “I said I wanted to fight Klein.”