In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Paul McCartney opens up about his final years with The Beatles and discusses how the band felt "threatened" in the presence of Yoko Ono, John Lennon's wife.
"We were kind of threatened [then]," McCartney said. "She was sitting on the amps while we were recording. Most bands couldn't handle that. We handled it, but not amazingly well, because we were so tight."
Ono has long faced the ire of Beatles fans, many of whom allege that she broke up the group.
"We weren't sexist," McCartney continued, "but girls didn't come to the studio — they tended to leave us to it."
Today, McCartney's relationship with Ono is on solid ground — "It's like we're mates," he said — but back in the late '60s, he had to learn to accept her.
"My big awakening was, if John loves this woman, that's gotta be right," McCartney said. "I realized any resistance was something I had to overcome. It was a little hard at first. Gradually, we did."
Previously, in an interview with Al Jazeera, McCartney explained that Ono "certainly didn't break up the group."
"I think she attracted John so much to another way of life that he then went on to, very successfully, add a sort of second part to his career, writing things like 'Imagine' and 'Give Peace a Chance,'" McCartney told the outlet in 2012. "I don't think he would have done that without Yoko."
