Paul McCartney’s Daughter Said She Spent Her Childhood Watching Her Dad Recover From The Beatles
Paul McCartney’s daughter Stella was born after The Beatles broke up, but she said she spent much of her childhood watching her father recover from the band’s split. The breakup was acrimonious, particularly for McCartney. He sued the group to maintain the right to their music, which turned his bandmates against him. While they later reconciled, McCartney had a hard time dealing with the dissolution of the band that had meant so much to him.
The Beatles broke up in 1970
Ringo Starr, George Harrison, and John Lennon appointed Allen Klein as The Beatles’ manager, and McCartney disagreed with the decision. When the band broke up in 1970, he sued.
“The only way for me to save The Beatles and Apple — and to release Get Back by Peter Jackson and which allowed us to release Anthology and all these great remasters of all the great Beatles records — was to sue the band,” McCartney told GQ. “If I hadn’t done that, it would have all belonged to Allen Klein. The only way I was given to get us out of that was to do what I did.”
He had not wanted to sue the band, just Klein, but it was his only option.
“I said, ‘Well, I’ll sue Allen Klein,’ and I was told I couldn’t because he wasn’t party to it. ‘You’ve got to sue The Beatles,'” McCartney added.
Paul McCartney’s daughter Stella said she watched her dad recover from the split
After The Beatles broke up, Harrison and Lennon felt a sense of relief. Starr was angry, and McCartney was left feeling utterly lost. He moved to Scotland with his wife and drank heavily.
“To escape. To be numb,” he said, per the book Paul McCartney: A Life by Peter Ames Carlin. “I was a zombie.”
His bandmates turned against him, and McCartney struggled to handle the post-Beatles life. His children, including his daughter Stella McCartney, took note, though she said she didn’t fully understand how much it impacted him at the time.
“It did occur to me, watching it, that we spent a lot of our childhood with Dad recovering from the turmoil and the breakup,” she told The New Yorker. “Can you imagine being such a critical part of that creation and then having it crumble? And, as children, we were part of a process in which our dad was mourning. It was not an easy thing for Dad, and it lasted for a lot longer than we probably knew.”
Paul McCartney’s daughter said she always respected her father’s work
Stella said that while she was aware of her father’s fame growing up, she had a relatively normal childhood.
“We never bought newspapers, ever. Ever,” she told Interview Magazine in 2012. “I don’t buy the newspapers now. So I have to say we grew up really isolated from that side of our life. Maybe in a bubble. You had moments when it was all in your face, and then most of the time it really wasn’t part of the daily routine. It was just Dad’s job.”
She said she was sometimes embarrassed by her father, but she mostly accepted his fame as a normal part of her life.
“Yeah, but you know, the thing is, I’ve always had quite a high level of respect for my parents,” she said. “Also, you’d listen to it so much that you just got it. It’s like seeing the same dress every night. Your mom’s a fashion designer and she brings home the same piece of knitwear, and so your opinion of something evens out because you’re seeing the same jacket every day.”
