A Writer Predicted The Beatles Would Break Up Because Their Wives Wouldn’t Get Along
Though all of The Beatles were married by 1970, their manager, Brian Epstein, didn’t initially want them to have wives. He believed that their fan base would be disappointed or even lose interest in them if they did. Others had different opinions about why marriage would spell doom for the band. A writer posited the misogynistic view that The Beatles would break up because their wives wouldn’t be able to get along.
The Beatles kept their relationships with their wives a secret
John Lennon was the first Beatle to get married. He wed his first wife, Cynthia, in 1962 after she discovered she was pregnant. They had a child together, but they weren’t supposed to publicly speak about their relationship.
“Most of the time I had to keep it secret,” Cynthia wrote in her book, John. “I had a gold wedding ring John had bought for ten pounds, but I couldn’t wear it when I went out, in case a fan who knew my face spotted me. It was hard, not being able to announce to everyone that I was married, or enjoy talking about the baby. I had few of the joys of being a young wife looking forward to the birth of her child.”
She said that it stung to have to deny her marriage. Still, she took some comfort in the fact that it wasn’t her husband’s idea.
“It hurt having to deny who I was and keep my marriage under wraps, but it was always Brian, not John, who insisted on the secrecy,” she said. “John argued with him about it: he reckoned it wouldn’t make any difference to the group’s image if the fans knew he was married but Brian decreed that it must be kept quiet. Understandably he kept his own private life secret and this might have influenced his attitude to the Beatles. He didn’t even want Paul to be linked with Jane [Asher].”
Some incorrectly predicted The Beatles would break up because of their wives
Epstein believed serious relationships would ward off fans. Others had different predictions for why marriage would be bad for The Beatles. Per The Beatles: The Authorized Biography by Hunter Davies, a writer in the Sunday Telegraph believed the band would break up because of their wives.
This wasn’t because the writer believed they would want to settle into married life or take time off music to raise a family. They believed the band would break up because “the chance of four random women liking one another or even being able to get on with one another will be small indeed.”
Of course, this misogynistic prediction was not accurate. Cynthia Lennon, Pattie Boyd, and Maureen Starkey, who were with Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr for years before the band broke up, got along well. The band’s split had nothing to do with their relationship with one another.
All four have gone through a divorce
By the late 1970s, Lennon, Harrison, and Starr had separated from their wives. Lennon and Cynthia ended their relationship in 1968 after Lennon began an affair with Yoko Ono. Harrison and Starr’s marriages ended not long after Harrison had an affair with Starr’s wife.
McCartney remained married to his first wife, Linda, until her death in 1998. In 2008, he divorced his second wife, Heather Mills.
