Julian Lennon Had an ‘Amazing’ Encounter With Paul McCartney in an Airport Lounge: ‘So Lovely, and What Are the Chances?’

Not everyone can call music legend Paul McCartney “Uncle Paul,” but John Lennon’s son Julian Lennon does. And after a chance encounter in an airport, Lennon shared how “thankful” he was for an “amazing” moment with his lifelong friend. But why does he have a “love-hate relationship” with a famous Beatles song he wrote about him?

Julian Lennon had an ‘amazing’ encounter with Paul McCartney at an airport

Though Lennon said that keeping up with McCartney is sometimes “difficult” because the icon is “touring all over the world like the Energizer bunny,” he revealed he corresponds with the former Beatle on special occasions.

“Paul and I do keep in touch. We send each other cards for Christmas and birthdays,” he said in an interview with BBC.

But an encounter with McCartney that he wasn’t expecting left him feeling “thankful.”

“It’s amazing who you run into in an airport lounge!” Lennon shared on Twitter. “None other than Uncle Paul….”

“So, so lovely, and what are the chances…,” he added.

Julian Lennon is thankful to Paul McCartney for ‘Hey Jude’ but has a ‘love-hate relationship’ with the song

McCartney famously wrote “Hey Jude” for Lennon amid the unraveling of John Lennon’s first marriage.

But Lennon revealed he has a “love-hate relationship” with the song. On Sirius XM’s Debatable, he disclosed that it invokes memories from a painful time in his life.

“I am thankful to Paul for writing it and putting some hope behind what was to come,” Julian explained (per The Independent). But he added, “The downside of it was it was a dark reminder of what actually went down at the time, the separation.”

Lennon explained that he “wasn’t really aware of what was going on except when [he] started seeing Yoko [Ono] around …”

He shared, “… Obviously, that made a bit of an impact and, apparently, I struggled with the separation a great deal at five.”

Julian Lennon said ‘The Beatles: Get Back’ was a reminder of his love for John Lennon

Lennon explained to Debatable that creating his new album Jude helped him come to new terms with the iconic song about him. “The album allowed me to explain what ‘Hey Jude’ meant to me because the fact of the matter is it was a love-hate relationship,” he said (per People). “I thought I had heard it enough.”

Watching The Beatles: Get Back reminded Lennon of the good memories of his father. “After watching the documentary, there was so much pride seeing dad the way I used to know him as a kid,” he explained.

He added that “remembering him and seeing him being a goofy bugger but also being such a great writer, performer, and singer” was powerful. “It reminded me how much love I actually had for him,” he shared. “It just brought a lot of memories up.”