Paul McCartney Said Ringo Starr Had the Hardest Upbringing of All the Beatles 

According to Paul McCartney, all of The Beatles dealt with hardships growing up, but Ringo Starr had it the worst. He rarely saw his father, and frequent illness left him in the hospital for lengthy periods of time. McCartney believes that this led to Starr building a strong armor around himself. The drummer joked a bit about his childhood, however.

The Beatles drummer grew up in Liverpool

Like the rest of The Beatles, Starr grew up in Liverpool. His parents divorced when he was young, and he rarely saw his father after the split, leaving him with few memories of the man. 

After an appendectomy at the age of six, he contracted peritonitis, which left him in the hospital for a year. As a result, he fell behind in school. By the time he caught up with his classmates, he contracted tuberculosis. He stayed in a sanatorium for two years while recovering. Here, though, staff encouraged patients to play musical instruments as a way to occupy their time. Per Biography, he fell in love with the drums while in the sanatorium.

Paul McCartney said that Ringo Starr had the most challenging upbringing out of The Beatles

According to McCartney, all of the Beatles faced difficulties growing up, but in his eyes, Starr’s adolescence had the most hardships.

“I don’t want to bring in the violins, but we all came from hardship,” McCartney told Rolling Stone in 2015. “All of us except for George [Harrison] lost someone. I lost my mum when I was 14. John [Lennon] lost his mum. But Ringo had it worst. His father was gone; he was so sick they told his mum he wasn’t going to live. Imagine making up your life from that, in that environment. No family, no school. He had to invent himself. We all had to come up with a shield, but Ringo came up with the strongest shield.”

Despite this, Starr said he looked at his childhood through a lens of positivity, even if it wasn’t entirely truthful.

“I always thought I had a great childhood,” he said. “Then a therapist told me, ‘Well, actually, it sounds like you were abandoned and lived in a slum.’”

Paul McCartney thinks of Ringo Starr as family

After years together in The Beatles and several more decades as friends and collaborators, Starr and McCartney think of each other as family.

“It’s family,” McCartney said. “Sometimes we get pissed off at each other. I’ll want something from him, and he won’t give it to me, and I’ll get pissed off. But then it passes. Brothers fight sometimes. There’s this revisionist history that it was all John and Paul. But it was four corners of a square; it wouldn’t have worked without one of the sides. Ringo was the right angle.”