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Paul McCartney is opening up about how his wife helped him deal with the breakup of The Beatles.
In the documentary, “Paul McCartney: Man on the Run,” director Morgan Neville spoke with the 83-year-old musician about his life after The Beatles, and how a mantra he learned from his late wife, Linda McCartney, helped him cope, teaching him “not to be too uptight.”
“In a situation like that you lost your job, you can get uptight very easily,” he said. “One of my favorite expressions of hers was, you’d be saying, ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’d love to do so and so, but I can’t. I can’t,’ and she’d say, ‘it’s allowed.’ It’s like all the weight just went off. It’s allowed. Yeah, of course it is. So those kind of things really impressed me and I think probably made me think a lot more was allowed than was.”
Linda and Paul met in 1967, while she was working as a photographer, and were married two years later in March 1969. Throughout their marriage, the two welcomed three children: Mary, Stella and James.
Paul says his wife’s motto helped lift a weight off his shoulder. (Fryderyk Gabowicz/picture alliance via Getty Images)
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In the documentary, Paul called Linda “a freeing influence,” saying that while she grew up in a “posh” area of New York and “was on track to become the sort of company wife,” that’s not what she wanted.
“She liked rock and roll, and she would do things like sneak out of the house late at night to and drive into New York with a boyfriend,” he said. “So there was a lot of freedom in her thinking, so I think that’s really was good for me.”
A few years after The Beatles broke up, Paul formed the band Wings, with Linda joining full-time as a keyboardist and also providing vocals.
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Wings went on to become one of the biggest bands of the 1970s, with hits like “Band on the Run,” “Live and Let Die” and “My Love,” and two Grammy Award wins.
Paul and Linda later formed the band Wings, with Linda providing vocals and playing keyboard. (David Redfern/Redferns)
When thinking about that time, Paul says when he listens to the music and hears “these beautiful harmonies coming from Linda,” he still stands in awe of her talent.
“I think wait a minute there was no auto tune. We didn’t have any of…that’s real,” he said. “She hadn’t had any lessons and it was just a love of singing. I liked her voice. Her style was not operatic. It was not blues.”
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Paul and Linda were married for nearly 30 years before her death in 1998 at the age of 58, following a battle with breast cancer.
During an interview with BBC Radio Scotland’s Ricky Ross Meets Paul shared that following her death, “I think I cried for about a year on and off.”
When looking back on his time in Wings, Paul is still in awe of Linda’s voice. (Rob Verhorst/Redferns)
“You expect to see them walk in, this person you love, because you are so used to them,” he said. “I cried a lot. It was almost embarrassing except it seemed the only thing to do.”
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The couple’s eldest daughter, Mary, followed in her mother’s footsteps, growing up to be a photographer. Their middle child, Stella, famously went on to become a fashion designer, calling herself “one of the first nepo-babies” in an interview with Time in 2023.
Paul has three children, including fashion designer, Stella McCartney. (Dave Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images for Stella McCartney)
Their son James is now a musician, having partnered with his father’s former bandmate, John Lennon’s son, Sean Lennon to write the 2024 song, “Primrose Hill.”
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Paul also shares daughter Beatrice, with his second wife, Heather Mills, and was also stepfather to Linda’s daughter Heather from her previous marriage.