Ringo Starr Admitted He Didn’t Think of Himself as a Good Father
TL;DR:
- Ringo Starr had three children with his first wife.
- Ringo Starr once said he didn’t necessarily think of himself as a good father.
- Ringo Starr was the first Beatle to become a grandfather.
Ringo Starr first became a father in 1965. He had two more children with his first wife, Maureen Starkey, and two step-children from his second marriage. Starr and his children have solid relationships now, but he said that he was often absent during their childhood. He admitted that he didn’t necessarily think of himself as a good father to his children.
Ringo Starr is the father of three children
In 1965, Starr married Starkey. She was a fan of The Beatles, and the pair decided to wed after she discovered she was pregnant with their first child, Zak. In 1967 they had their second child, another son named Jason, and, in 1970, a daughter named Lee.
Despite the craze of Beatlemania, Starr and Starkey decided to have children. He explained that his life in The Beatles wasn’t as meticulously planned as people may think.
“We never sat there saying ‘Oh, well, you can’t become a dad, or you can’t do this,'” he told Us Weekly in 2000. “I got married. We had Zak. Two years later we had Jay. And in 1970 we had Lee. We lived. We did have to move out and get a house with a big gate. But; you know, it was not like a lot of the bands today: ‘Oh, we can’t get married. Career first’ We never really thought like that. Of course, we did think of it for a moment with John [Lennon], who was married [to first wife Cynthia] and didn’t want to tell anybody. But there wasn’t as much planning as people might imagine in the Beatles’ career.”
Ringo Starr said he didn’t think he was a good father
Starr and Starkey divorced in 1975, and she said he was a good father despite their marital problems. Starr wasn’t sure he agreed with this.
“I don’t feel like that, really,” he said. “I feel that I have let them down in many ways.”
His son Zak said Starr was rarely around during his childhood.
“To be perfectly honest, being Ringo’s son is the biggest drag in my life,” Zak said as a teenager, per the book Ringo: With a Little Help by Michael Seth Starr. “I’m always written about as Ringo’s son, always classed in with him in every single thing I do … And if I do get successful, I don’t want to live like my old man, on a big estate and all that ‘My old man was never there.’ During my puberty, [Keith Moon] was always there with me while my old man was far away in Monte Carlo or somewhere.”
More recently, Starr said his relationship with his children was solid.
“The kids keep coming around, and they tell me they love me, so that makes me cry,” he said. “It makes me happy.”
He is now a great grandfather
In 1985, Starr became the first Beatle to become a grandfather. He has since had seven more grandchildren.
In 2016, Starr’s eldest grandchild, Tatia Starkey, became a mother, making Starr a great-grandfather for the first time.
