Celebrity
The Beatles met hundreds of people after they became famous. John Lennon said they barely tolerated any of these people.
At the peak of The Beatles’ fame, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr were the most sought-after people in the world. Fans crowded them wherever they went and other celebrities wanted to be their friend. They met hundreds of new people after their rise to fame. According to Lennon, they didn’t like many of the people they met.
John Lennon said The Beatles didn’t like many of the new people they met
By the mid-1960s, The Beatles were the biggest band in the world. They’d met royalty and celebrities and were always on the invite list to parties.
“Everybody wanted to be The Beatles’ friend,” road manager Neil Aspinall said in The Beatles Anthology. “That’s showbusiness. I’ve always found it very transient. You meet people when you’re doing a gig and you might not meet them again for another six months or a year.”
Lennon said that the band wanted little to do with their new acquaintances. They preferred one another’s company.
“We have met some new people since we’ve become famous, but we’ve never been able to stand them for more than two days. Some hang on a bit longer, perhaps a few weeks, but that’s all. Most people don’t get across to us,” Lennon said, adding, “We can’t go around with anybody for a long time unless they are a friend, because we’re so closely knit. We talk in code to each other. We always did when we had strangers around us…”
Paul McCartney shared how they got rid of people they didn’t like
The Beatles met so many people they disliked that they had to come up with a code to deal with them. McCartney shared how they signaled to road manager Mal Evans when they wanted to be left alone.
“If there was someone disastrous in the dressing room (because, occasionally, someone would get in who was a right pain and we didn’t have time for all of that) we would have little signs,” he explained. “We’d say ‘Mal…’ and yawn, and that would be the sign to get rid of them. It was a very ‘in’ scene.”
Based on Lennon’s opinion of the people around them, they likely had to use this code often.
John Lennon admitted The Beatles’ fame overwhelmed him
Lennon said he always wanted to be famous and successful. When he actually achieved it, though, he found it incredibly overwhelming. When the band met Elvis in 1965, Lennon asked how to deal with it.
“Elvis, the crowds are crazy wherever we go,” Lennon said, per the book Here Comes the Sun: The Musical and Spiritual Journey of George Harrison by Joshua M. Greene. “It’s dangerous. Sometimes it scares the hell out of us.”
Elvis’ advice was truthful, though not very comforting.
“John, if you’re scared of crowds, you’re in the wrong business,” he said.
The Beatles ultimately decided to handle the pressure of constant fan attention by stopping touring in 1966.
