Sir Paul McCartney has admitted his late Beatles bandmate John Lennon “could be a complete idiot” while reflecting on their infamously tense early‑70s period.
During a candid conversation with director Judd Apatow, McCartney was asked why Lennon seemed irritated by his post‑Beatles direction. The filmmaker asked: “Was it a joyfulness to it while he’s doing primal scream and you’re having fun? What do you think got under his skin about it?”
McCartney replied about his Wings era: “Well, I don’t know. I think maybe he expected more from me. He expected something different from me, and I wasn’t doing that. I was just doing ‘madcap’.”
He bluntly added: “I always thought John was very cool, and I still do. But he could be a complete idiot, over some things.”
Despite the clashes, McCartney said Lennon’s behaviour never changed how he viewed him: “It wouldn’t matter, as it didn’t matter, what he said or did, because I’d known him since I was 15, and so he was like this mad guy I knew, and I really looked up to him.”
The 84-year-old music legend formed Wings in 1971 with his then-wife Linda McCartney and Denny Laine, just a year after Let It Be, the final album by The Beatles.
Wings – which also included Denny Seiwell and former Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine – went on to release seven albums, including the acclaimed 1973 LP Band on the Run.
Lennon publicly dismissed McCartney’s early solo work, famously saying in 1971 that he couldn’t imagine working with him again. McCartney later admitted that several lyrics on Ram – particularly in Too Many People – contained barbs toward Lennon.
By 1975, Lennon was praising Band on the Run, saying: “Wings keeps changing all the time. It’s conceptual. I mean, they’re backup men for Paul. It doesn’t matter who’s playing. You can call them Wings, but it’s Paul McCartney music. And it’s good stuff.”