Chris Jericho “was a little starstruck” when he met Sir Paul McCartney.
The 55-year-old wrestler fronts the heavy metal band Fozzy and recalled how he took the opportunity to chat with the Beatles legend recently.
In an interview with Loaded, Chris said: “I met Paul McCartney recently, and I thought, ‘You know what? F*** it! I’m just going to go over and talk to him.’
“I was a little starstruck, but I’d been waiting 40 years for this moment. He was just hanging around backstage and didn’t seem to be bothered. So, I talked to him for a while, we exchanged a few stories, took a picture, and then I left him alone.”
Fozzy opened for Iron Maiden at a Los Angeles gig in 2019 and Jericho was astonished that he got the chance to share a stage with the Run to the Hills rockers.
The All Elite Wrestling (AEW) star said: “It doesn’t get any better, and it doesn’t get any bigger. It’s one of those times when we had to sit back and really appreciate the moment.
“I’m looking at the poster now. I still look back at it and think, ‘Wow! That was amazing.’ Look, opening for Iron Maiden wasn’t easy, but we did a good job.”
Chris added: “It was so cool walking off the stage at this massive venue, and down the hallway came Iron Maiden. All six of them. It was crazy. It was at the time Bruce Dickinson had the old school pilot helmet on.
“I was like, ‘Where the f*** am I?’ I felt like a kid trying to dodge the security guards in case I got kicked out. But I was supposed to be here. It was one of the greatest moments, for sure.”
The former WWE star also recalled how he “almost started crying” when he first encountered Metallica frontman James Hetfield – but he is now on friendly terms with both the vocalist and drummer Lars Ulrich.
Chris said: “The first time I met James Hetfield, I almost started crying. That’s how much it meant to me. Now, I see James, and we say, ‘Hi’, and Lars is a friend, so the days of being starstruck are pretty much gone now.”