Beatles Legend Ringo Starr Once Stormed Off the Set of ‘Live With Regis and Kelly’ Due to a Petty Demand
Former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr hasn’t stopped making music. Since the Fab Four’s break-up in 1970, he’s faithfully continued creating and promoting his work.
And in 2008, Starr released Liverpool 8, his 15th studio album. It was while Starr was pitching the album on Live with Regis and Kelly that the Photograph singer up and left the show’s set just before he was about to appear.
Here’s what happened.
Starr was plugging his latest album at that time, ‘Liverpool 8’
From Starr’s first album, the standards collection Sentimental Journey, to his latest, the five song EP Zoom In, the musician over the years has generated tunes and made the rounds to promote his new work.
His album Liverpool 8 refers to the postal district of the area of Liverpool where Starr was born. It was released in 2008.
The songs on the album, as its name implies, are a nostalgic look at his native English city, Starr told the Times Herald-Record.
“I was a sailor first and I worked in the factory and then I played with Rory (Storm) and I ended up in Hamburg and I ended up at Shea Stadium,” Starr said. “And Liverpool, I left you but I never let you down. So that was real easy to take those moments and put them in the song.”
Starr stormed off the ‘Live With Regis and Kelly’ set
And it was on his rounds while promoting Liverpool 8 that the drummer stopped by the set of Live with Regis and Kelly, where things did not go smoothly.
“Ringo was scheduled to appear on the syndicated morning talk show Live with Regis and Kelly, hosted by Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa, to promote Liverpool 8,” Ringo: With a Little Help author Michael Seth Starr reported. “But when he was told he would have to shorten the song he was going to perform (also called “Liverpool 8″) by 2 1/2 minutes, in order to adhere to the show’s time constraints, he balked — and walked off the show less than an hour before he was scheduled to go on.”
Starr’s publicist suggested that the hosts’ talk time with Starr could be shortened in order to allow him to perform for the length of time he had been given.
The show was “not willing to do that and Ringo was not willing to cut it further, so without a compromise, we were not able to stay. Ringo left saying, ‘God bless and goodbye. We still love Regis.'”
‘Live With Regis and Kelly’s take on the situation
The incident took on a life of its own in the press and the show’s publicity stated that nothing was sprung on Starr at the last moment.
“A Live with Regis and Kelly spokeswoman told the Associated Press that Ringo had been booked since November — and that the show’s producers tried to work something out with him, as he’d been told ‘numerous times’ how long the song needed to be to fit the show’s format,” Starr’s biographer said.
Despite the publicity the album received from the experience, Liverpool 8 was one of Starr’s least-successful efforts, selling 7,000 copies in its first week in the U.S.
