George Harrison Had a Surprisingly ‘Brutal’ Personality: ‘By No Means Was the Man a Saint’

George Harrison’s personality didn’t shine through as clearly as his bandmates in The Beatles’ years. For that reason, he became known as the Quiet Beatle. This, coupled with his spiritual devotion, created the image of Harrison as a peaceful, reflective musician. According to those who knew him, though, this wasn’t accurate. Jim Keltner, who got to know Harrison well over the years, said Harrison could be surprisingly brutal.

George Harrison had a personality that would surprise people, said a friend

Keltner, a drummer, got to know Harrison while John Lennon was recording Imagine. They became good friends and collaborators. 

“He was the most unusual person,” Keltner said of Harrison to Uncut. “John was just very, very normal. He was a regular kind of guy: funny, incredibly smart, and incredibly fast with everything. Nothing took a long time. When we got to hanging out, it was fantastic but it was like living in a cloud. There’s so much John stuff that I just can’t remember because we were so loaded, and everything was so condensed, timewise. George was just the opposite. With George, it was always kind of mystifying how he would come up with stuff to do, and how easily he made it happen.”

He said he often spoke highly of Harrison, which could make the former Beatle seem saintlike. According to Keltner, this was not the case.

“When I talk about George, sometimes I feel like I’m making him sound too much like he was a saint. By no means was the man a saint!” Keltner said. “Over the years with him and John, they could both be really brutal with Paul.”

Still, neither Harrison nor Lennon let Keltner join in when they insulted McCartney. This showed that, even at their harshest, they weren’t too bad.

Was George Harrison’s personality at odds with his public persona?

The image of Harrison as sharp-tongued contrasts with his Quiet Beatle nickname. This isn’t because Harrison was trying to portray himself as something different than what he was. Rather, Quiet Beatle was a title the press gave Harrison.

“They always dubbed me the Quiet One, the Reclusive One, the Business One,” he said, per the book The Beatles Diary Volume 2: After the Break Up. “Just because I wasn’t in the nightclubs all the time they thought I was some kind of freak or something.”

Of all the Beatles, Harrison was the most uncomfortable with fame, which meant he wasn’t as talkative with the press or fans. He stepped back from the public eye after The Beatles broke up, meaning the public perception of him that arose in the 1960s stuck. He wasn’t dishonest about who he was; he just didn’t have much control over it.

Those who knew George Harrison agreed that he wasn’t the Quiet Beatle

The people who knew and loved Harrison often set the record straight on what he was like as a person.

“George was bold, and he was very provocative,” his wife Olivia told the LA Times. “I don’t know how many times I jabbed him in the ribs at some function when he’d make one of his comments. I’d tell him, ‘Don’t go there, don’t start,’ but he liked to have fun with people. He always could break the ice.”

Tom Petty, one of Harrison’s close friends, agreed.

“He never shut up,” Petty told Rolling Stone. “He was the best hang you could imagine.”