Paul McCartney Slams Yoko Ono For Hurting The Beatles’ Careers

On a recent episode of the McCartney: A Life in Lyrics podcast, Paul McCartney revealed that John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, was a distraction for The Beatles in reference to the making of 1968’s The White Album. “An interference in the workplace,” he simply stated.

Fans have accused Yoko of hurting the Fab Four’s career for many years, but Paul got more candid about the details, noting that she was not responsible for their split. “Yoko certainly didn’t break the group up, the group was breaking up,” he said in 2012.

They never really confronted John

The four young men had their mode of operation in the studio, the only other person involved being producer George Martin … until Yoko showed up. Paul admitted that he as well as Ringo Starr and George Harrison felt the same way about her presence, but simply accepted John’s choice to have her there.

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“We would allow this and not make a fuss. And yet, at the same time, I don’t think any of us particularly liked it,” he explained, adding that they chose to focus and prioritize recording instead. “This was our job. This is what we did in life. We were The Beatles,” Paul, who recently began a concert tour throughout Australia, added.

The Beatles would have disbanded regardless

Even today, many people blame Yoko for the Beatles’ breakup; however — as noted above — Paul does not agree with that assessment. Although she certainly contributed to the already existing tension, the decision to go apart was ultimately theirs and was a process that had been happening for some time.

“It was a period of change, because John and Yoko had got together, and that was bound to have an effect on the dynamics of the group,” the iconic vocalist clarified. Regardless of what his friends thought, John and Yoko got married and welcomed a son in 1975, five years before John was killed by a fan and just as he had come out of self-imposed retirement with the album he recorded with Yoko, Double Fantasy.