In 1970, Paul McCartney announced that The Beatles had broken up, but Ringo Starr had already temporarily fractured the group. Tired of feeling overlooked and ignored by his bandmates, Starr quit The Beatles. His first wife, Maureen, said that when he told her he’d quit the band, he was clearly angriest with McCartney. She said he had some harsh words for his former bandmate, but Starr was justified in his anger.
The drummer briefly quit The Beatles
In 1968, Starr temporarily left The Beatles because he felt like an outsider.
“I had definitely left, I couldn’t take it anymore,” he explained in Anthology. “There was no magic and the relationships were terrible. I knew we were all in a messed-up stage. It wasn’t just me; the whole thing was going down.”
When he told his bandmates he was leaving because of how left out he felt, they admitted to feeling the same way. Still, he thought it was best to step away from the band, even if it was only temporary.
Ringo Starr was particularly upset with Paul McCartney when he temporarily left the band
When Starr got home after quitting, he told Maureen to pack a suitcase. They were going to Sardinia, and he wouldn’t tell her why at first.
“He told me to pack my bags without giving me much of an explanation, but I could see a look of distress in his eyes,” Maureen told Le Chronicleur in 1988, per Express. “It was just painful. I fought with him for a while, I really did and I told him that it was foolish to go away so soon, but I could tell he didn’t really care at that point. I do remember him muttering something about Paul under his breath — something really dirty which made me believe that Paul and Richy had a row.”
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Though Starr was frustrated with band dynamics as a whole, he reserved most of his ire for McCartney.
“I will never forget what he muttered as he folded his socks and put them in the suitcase,” Maureen said. “He said, ‘Paul is a f***ing moron.”
Ringo Starr had reason to be upset with Paul McCartney
Starr eventually returned to The Beatles after his bandmates wrote him a letter asking him to come back. These days, he has a much friendlier relationship with McCartney, but Starr was justified in his anger in 1968.
McCartney could be controlling and dismissive of his bandmates’ talents — he said that George Harrison’s songwriting wasn’t good prior to 1969’s Abbey Road. Starr said his bandmate acted like a spoiled child when he didn’t get his way. Though the band didn’t last for much longer after this, walking out showed McCartney that Starr didn’t want to be walked over. He was an integral part of the band, and he needed to be treated as such.
