Paul McCartney’s House Was a ‘Dump’ Covered in Dog Poop Before Meeting Linda McCartney
When Linda McCartney first met Paul McCartney, his house was such a disaster that to call it a mess would be kind. According to Beatles associate Tony Bramwell, McCartney’s house had fallen into disarray after his breakup with longtime girlfriend Jane Asher. His relationship with Linda helped him reorganize his life and living situation.
Linda McCartney helped pull Paul McCartney together
After McCartney and Asher broke up, he lived in a house with a rotating group of women.
“There were several semi-clad girls walking about the house,” writer Barry Miles recalled in his book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now. “‘It’s terrible,’ he said, gesturing. ‘The birds are always quarreling about something. There’s three living here at the moment.’ The jostling for position must have been something to see.”
The house was also a mess. Bramwell could hardly believe the conditions the musician lived in before meeting his future wife.
“I thought she was lovely,” he said, per the book Paul McCartney: The Life by Philip Norman. “And she tidied him up a bit. Since Jane went, no one had been looking after him. I don’t know what his housekeeper was doing. The house had turned into a bachelor dump. Martha [the sheepdog] was crapping all over the floor and nobody bothered to clear it up.”
Linda McCartney was shocked when she first saw Paul McCartney’s house
Linda flew from New York to London to stay with McCartney early into their relationship. When she arrived, she found a messy house full of broken items.
“I got there and I arrived at this house and it was a dark house, a lot of brown, a lot of dark colours, a bachelor’s house, a man’s house,” she said. “I remember nothing worked, the TV barely worked, the stereo was broken, nothing worked.”
McCartney admitted that his future wife had walked into a mess.
“I said, ‘Come on over, then,’ and she arrived the night when we were doing ‘Happiness is a Warm Gun,'” McCartney recalled. “[Linda] arrived at the house and phoned, and I had Mal [Evans] go round to check that she was alright. She remembers the fridge had half a bottle of sour milk and a crust of cheese, a real British fridge. She just couldn’t believe the conditions I was living in.”
The pair fell in love practically immediately
Though McCartney’s home likely didn’t do much to win Linda over, the couple was already in love enough that it didn’t matter. According to Bramwell, he watched them develop an instant and intense connection.
“Then Paul detached himself from the circus surrounding him and took Linda aside,” he said. “As I looked across the room, I suddenly saw something happen. Right before my eyes, they fell in love. It was like the thunderbolt the Sicilians speak of, the coup de foudre the French speak of in hushed tones, that once-in-a-lifetime feeling.”
The pair married in 1969 and remained together until Linda’s death in 1998.
