Paul McCartney Shared Why He Didn’t Care About Blowing Up His Career to Marry Linda McCartney

Paul and Linda McCartney were practically inseparable once they began a relationship. He said he realized he wanted to marry her a year after they met, which some advised him against. McCartney said people warned him that getting married could lose him fans. He shared why this wasn’t much of a concern for him.

Paul McCartney said he didn’t worry about the way Linda McCartney might impact his career

McCartney married Linda in 1969. He said he was very happy in his marriage, but he knew some people thought it was a bad idea. He acknowledged that many musicians avoided marriage because of how it could impact their careers.

“I know of a lot of rock & roll stars or just even show business people who will regulate their life to their image,” he told Rolling Stone. “It can mess you up a lot. I know a lot of guys from the old days who wouldn’t get married, even if they wanted to. Wouldn’t get married because it might affect their careers. The old management thing – ‘You can’t get married, all your fans are going to desert you.’ So the guy doesn’t get married.”

He said he didn’t want to let his career get in the way of his life.

“But the thing is, in a couple of years, his career is over anyway,” he said. “And he didn’t get married, and he went and blew it. So I didn’t. ‘Well, I’m not going to let that kind of thing interfere with me.’ Although I didn’t wish to blow my career, I thought it was more important to get on with living. We went ahead and just did what we felt like doing. Some of it came out possibly a bit offensive to some people, but it turns out that it didn’t matter in the first place. You just keep going.”

Paul McCartney shared why he put Linda McCartney in his band

McCartney’s decision to put Linda in Wings also raised some eyebrows. The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger said he would “never put his old lady in the band.” McCartney explained why he wanted to work with Linda.

“That was all very understandable at the time because she did kind of appear out of nowhere,” he said. “To most people, she was just some chick. I just figure she was the main help for me on the albums around that time. She was there every day, helping on harmonies and all of that stuff.”

As with his marriage, he said he wanted to avoid making decisions based on others.

“It’s like you write millions of love songs and finally when you’re in love you’d kind of like to write one for the person you’re in love with,” he said. “So I think all this business about getting Linda in the billing was just a way of saying, ‘Listen, I don’t care what you think, this is what I think. I’m putting her right up there with me.’”

She and Yoko Ono faced an onslaught of hatred

While McCartney’s career did not end when he married, people still reacted strongly to his relationship. Linda, like the other Beatles’ wives, faced vitriol from the public. John Lennon said he felt deep sympathy for Linda because people treated Yoko Ono the same way.

“You know Linda has taken the same kind of shellacking Yoko got and we have a deep sympathy for her because we know what she’s been through,” he said in the book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono by David Sheff.

He added that people treated both women very unfairly.

“She got the same kind of insults, hatred, absolute garbage thrown at her for no reason whatsoever other than she fell in love with Paul McCartney,” he said. “It’s just a crying shame the way both Linda and Paul — uh, Linda and Yoko were treated.”