John Lennon Was More Compassionate Than Paul McCartney, Claimed McCartney’s Ex-Girlfriend 

John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s differences were what made them work so well together. Lennon’s dry wit balanced out McCartney’s sentimentality in songs and their personal lives. Dorothy “Dot” Rhone, who dated McCartney for two years, pointed out another surprising difference between the two bandmates. She claimed that Lennon was more compassionate than McCartney.

Paul McCartney’s ex-girlfriend said John Lennon was the more compassionate Beatle

In 1959, when The Beatles were still The Quarrymen, McCartney began dating Rhone. She traveled to Hamburg with Lennon’s future wife, Cynthia, to watch the band perform during their residency. As a result, she got to know each member of the band well. Though she was in a relationship with McCartney, Rhone said Lennon was often kinder to her. 

“Paul was always supposed to be the charming one, but John was more compassionate,” she said, per the book John Lennon: The Life by Philip Norman. “When Paul and I had a row, he’d often tell Paul to be nicer to me.”

Cynthia Lennon noted that McCartney demonstrated a lack of compassion when he broke up with Rhone. She hadn’t seen the split coming and felt blindsided by it.

“A moment later Dot appeared in my room, sobbing,” Cynthia wrote in her book John. “Paul had broken off their romance. I attempted to comfort her as she cried for the next couple of hours, convulsed with sobs, her little pixie face blotchy with tears, the rollers falling out and her hair coming down in damp strands. She couldn’t believe it had happened, but Paul wanted to be free and that was that.”

John Lennon had a bigger temper than Paul McCartney

While Rhone said Lennon was more compassionate, she, in fairness, was never in a relationship with him. The way he treated Cynthia was incredibly callous. He didn’t want to marry her — only doing so because she was pregnant — and cheated on her all throughout their relationship. Lennon also admitted to hitting nearly all of the women in his life.

“I used to be cruel to my woman, and physically — any woman,” he told Playboy in 1980, adding, “I was a hitter. I couldn’t express myself and I hit. I fought men and I hit women. That is why I am always on about peace, you see. It is the most violent people who go for love and peace.”

Paul McCartney and Dorothy Rhone nearly married

While Rhone is not one of McCartney’s better-known girlfriends, he almost married her. When Rhone discovered she was pregnant, McCartney’s father insisted on it. He believed his son should marry Rhone and start a family. 

Ultimately, though, Rhone miscarried, and any talk of marriage ceased. McCartney’s decision to end the relationship devastated Rhone.

Years later, though, they had a chance to talk things through. She’d moved to Canada and, when McCartney played a show there with Wings, he invited Rhone and her husband. Afterward, she finally had a chance to speak with McCartney.

“When she met Paul again, the ghost was laid,” her friend Sandra said, per Mental Floss.

It took years, but Rhone finally got the closure she needed.