The Beatles and Their Money: Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney Made at Least $4 Million for the ‘Get Back’ Series
The Beatles still draw people’s attention more than 50 years after the band disintegrated. The slew of No. 1 hits in the United States proved their popularity, and their status has hardly waned in the decades since they broke up. The tunes have stopped flowing (more or less), but the Beatles’ money hasn’t. Surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr added to their stockpiles by earning nearly $4 million for the docuseries The Beatles: Get Back.
Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney earned almost $4 million each for ‘The Beatles: Get Back’
Ron Howard’s Beatles documentary Eight Days a Week: The Touring Years landed in 2016 and gave fans a look at the band at the height of Beatlemania. Peter Jackson’s 2021 Disney+ series The Beatles: Get Back fast forwarded in the band’s timeline to the project that helped bring about the end of the group.
The Fab Four filmed the early 1969 recording sessions that gave us the album Let It Be (and director Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s film of the same name). Paul’s headstrong/forceful leadership didn’t sit well with his bandmates. The Beatles rebounded from the Let It Be/Get Back sessions with Abbey Road, the final record they made together, but they never fully recovered and officially broke up in early 1970.
Jackson’s series gave fans a new look at the late-stage Beatles and provided a financial windfall for Ringo and Paul.
The Irish Times reported that Apple Corps., the company controlled by Ringo, Paul, Yoko Ono, and Olivia Harrison, reported £11.7 million profit for the 2021 fiscal year. The exchange rate that year hovered above $1.36 to the pound, per the Federal Reserve, which equates to nearly $16 million (11.7 multiplied by 1.36). If the quartet split the profits evenly, then it translated to almost $4 million each.
As Apple Corps. owners, Paul, Ringo, and their bandmates’ spouses likely didn’t take home all the money. They certainly had payroll and other expenses to handle.
Yet by simply allowing Jackson to dive into the archives and produce a new Beatles product, they earned substantially more than $3 million each and most likely took home close to $4 million for not doing anything. Not a bad gig if you can get it.
Paul and Ringo have substantial net worths
Paul and Ringo made $4 million or close to it for The Beatles: Get Back, but they didn’t need the money. Macca has a higher net worth than the famous drummer, but they’re both well off. Paul has a fortune of roughly $1.2 billion (thanks to royalties, album sales, and licensing fees).
Ringo’s net worth sits around $350 million. He doesn’t have a deep catalog of songs generating money, but he was financially savvy enough to add to his net worth without lifting a finger.
Both of the surviving Beatles don’t just sit around collecting paychecks, though. Paul continually writes new songs and tours behind them, which helped him reach billionaire status. Ringo’s All-Starr Band tours are a nearly annual tradition, and those shows help pad his comfortable net worth.
What did the surviving Beatles think of ‘Get Back’?
Jackson’s docuseries looked back at a tumultuous time in The Beatles’ history, but both Paul and Ringo enjoyed it.
Fans alternately blamed Paul and Yoko for breaking up the band. Seeing Jackson’s finished product reminded him The Beatles always found joy in making music together. Even when things were at their worst — fistfights between George and John, boardroom bickering among all four — the Fab Four could come together over a few chords and a beautiful melody.
Ringo dumped on the Let It Be movie from 1970. He called it dark, boring, and joyless. Conversely, the drummer said Jackson’s work showcased the four band members having fun, which they almost always did when it came down to the music. Still, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr earning close to $4 million each for The Beatles: Get Back could play a small part in their rating the finished product so highly.
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