Paul McCartney Gets Candid About His Past Tension With 'Jealous' Yoko Ono

Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney

While going into detail about his life and his songwriting, Paul McCartney opened up on his relationship with Yoko Ono before the Beatles broke up.

The podcast About McCartney: A Life in Lyrics, which is co-produced by iHeartPodcasts and Pushkin, shared a new episode on Wednesday, Dec. 6, in which Paul recalled how Yoko allegedly claimed to John Lennon that he didn't contribute anything to the Beatles.

"John would do it in some of the songs he was writing, some of the comments were about how the Beatles did nothing, it was rubbish, the Beatles were crap," he said, adding, "Yoko would say ‘Paul never did anything. All he did was book the studio.’"

The comments appeared to leave Paul angry and frustrated at both John and Yoko, while he was also confused as to the motivation behind the statements: "It's like, 'Why would you say that? What is it about me? You're annoyed at me, or you're jealous?’”

In an earlier episode, Paul described how things changed for Paul, John, Ringo Starr and George Harrison's relationship when John and Yoko got together, noting, "John and Yoko had got together and that had to affect the dynamic of the group. Things like Yoko literally being in the middle of the recording session was something that had to be dealt with."

John and Yoko first got together in the late 1960s, getting married in March 1969, less than a year after John divorced his first wife, Cynthia Lennon. As John and Yoko continued their partnership, both romantically and creatively, the Beatles quickly fell apart, with Paul announcing the split in early 1970.

After John died in 1980, Paul and Yoko appeared to reconcile. In a 2013 interview with Rolling Stone, Paul said of Yoko and what led them to repair their relationship, "I thought, ‘If John loved her, there’s got to be something. He’s not stupid.' It’s like, what are you going to do? Are you going to hold a grudge you never really had?”

He then mentioned fellow Beatles member George's helpful advice: "George would say to me, ‘You don’t want stuff like that hanging around in your life.'”

Next: Paul McCartney Shares His Grief Amid News of Former Bandmate's Death