By Gwen Aviles
NBC News
Paul McCartney said that the misconception that he broke The Beatles up persists today and that “the only way” he could “save” the group’s music was to sue his former bandmates.
“I was thought to be the guy who broke The Beatles up and the b—— who sued his mates. And, believe me, I bought into that,” McCartney, 78, said in a wide-ranging interview with British GQ published Tuesday. “It was so prevalent that for years I almost blamed myself.”
McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison formed the legendary English rock band in 1960, which broke up a decade later following myriad disputes — one major one being differing opinions of the band’s manager Allen Klein, according to McCartney.
“The only way for me to save The Beatles and Apple — and to release Get Back by Peter Jackson which allowed us to release Anthology and all these great remasters of all the great Beatles records — was to sue the band,” McCartney told British GQ. “If I hadn’t done that, it would have all belonged to Allen Klein. The only way I was given to get us out of that was to do what I did.”
McCartney sued The Beatles in 1970 in London’s High Court of Justice. He sought the dissolution of the band’s contractual partnership after the other members of the group appointed Klein to preside over The Beatles’ financial affairs. McCartney wanted Lee Eastman, the father of his late wife, Linda Eastman, to manage the band’s finances instead, according to Rolling Stone, but he was outvoted.
Apple Corps Limited, which is unaffiliated with Apple Inc. the company behind iPhones and iPads, is a multimedia entertainment company founded by The Beatles in 1968. McCartney and Ringo Starr still own the company, along with the estates of Lennon and Harrison. Read more from NBC News.
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