John Lennon's Ex-Wife Said Paul McCartney Was the Only Beatle Who 'Had the Courage' to Defy Lennon

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John Lennon and Paul McCartney butted heads over the years. Lennon's ex-wife said that McCartney was the only Beatle who would stand up to Lennon.

Published on December 20, 2022

John Lennon and Paul McCartney clashed heads frequently, particularly in The Beatles’ later years. They both had a strong sense of the band’s creative direction, and they both wanted control over it. This caused frustration as the 1960s wore on, and each bandmate felt increasingly ready to embark on new projects. When looking back on the relationship between Lennon and McCartney, Lennon’s ex-wife Cynthia said McCartney was the only Beatle brave enough to go against his bandmate.

The former Beatle used to assert dominance over his bandmates

Each Beatle had the chance to write and sing during their time with the band, but there was a clear internal power structure. Journalist Al Aronowitz said he noticed this the first time the band met Bob Dylan.

When Dylan handed Lennon a joint, he passed it on to Ringo Starr and “commanded” that he try it first. Starr seemed hesitant but eventually complied when Lennon told him he had to be the “royal taster.” According to Aronowitz, this brief exchange “instantly revealed The Beatles’ pecking order” (via the book Ringo: With a Little Help by Michael Seth Starr).

George Harrison felt increasingly frustrated by the band’s power structure. He felt that Lennon and McCartney often overlooked his contributions to The Beatles. 

Cynthia Lennon said Paul McCartney was the only person who defied John Lennon

In 1968, Lennon and his first wife, Cynthia, divorced. She said that when her marriage ended, the only Beatle who came to see her was McCartney. This was meaningful to Cynthia because Lennon had instructed everyone to stay away from her.

“[Paul] joked about us getting married — ‘How about it, Cyn?’ — and I was grateful to him for cheering me up and caring enough to come,” she wrote in her book John. “He was the only member of the Beatles family who’d had the courage to defy John — who had apparently made it quite clear that he expected everyone to follow his lead in cutting me off.” 

She wondered if McCartney wanted to make a statement to Lennon by visiting her.

“Paul was his own man and not afraid of John,” she wrote. “In fact, musically and personally, the two were beginning to go in separate directions so perhaps Paul’s visit to me was also a statement to John.”

John Lennon and Paul McCartney had a rocky relationship

The power struggle between Lennon and McCartney left them feeling bitterly toward one another after The Beatles broke up. They wrote pointed lyrics about each other and gave scathing interviews about their time in the band. Still, McCartney said they maintained respect and love for each other.

“He was not the hard, mad man that people think he was,” McCartney said, per The Telegraph. “He was a very soft-centered guy and we had a lot more in common than people think. His favorite song when we were kids was ‘Little White Lies,’ which was very sentimental. It was a smoochy old standard that his mum liked. Whatever bad things John said about me, he would also slip his glasses down to the end of his nose and say, ‘I love you.’ That’s really what I hold on to. That’s what I believe. The rest is showing off.”

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