At one point, The Beatles were an unstoppable force that every other band aspired to be. Sadly, the band broke up and each members’ solo albums were arguably never as good as when they were together. Why did the band break up in the first place though? Traditional scapegoat Yoko Ono, John Lennon’s widow, has an idea.
Huffington Post reports that during an interview in 1987, Ono placed the blame for The Beatles’ breakup on a myriad of factors, including the controlling hand of Paul McCartney. She said that all of the members, including her husband, wanted to split off from the band and forge their own musical paths. McCartney didn’t want that and, according to Ono, tried to keep the band from splitting.
“Paul [McCartney] was the only one trying to hold the Beatles together. But the other three thought Paul would hold the Beatles together as his band. They were getting to be like Paul’s band, which they didn’t like.”
Ono has been traditionally blamed as the reason for the band’s breakup, but McCartney himself has said that was not the case. As it turns out, a lot of bands just breakup after a while due to creative differences or other reasons that nobody can predict. Yoko may have blamed Paul for the band breaking up sooner than expected, but it’s not like any one reason is the specific cause. We can at least rest easy knowing that The Beatles music will live on forever.