Paul McCartney’s Daughter Recalled His ‘Truly Heartbreaking’ Reaction to John Lennon’s Death

After John Lennon’s death, Paul McCartney faced backlash for the way he reacted to the news. When asked, McCartney referred to his former bandmate’s murder as a “drag.” Lennon’s son defended McCartney’s reaction. McCartney’s daughter also said that she recalled a much more emotional reaction when her father was in private.

Paul McCartney faced backlash after his reaction to John Lennon’s death

In 1980, Lennon was murdered outside his apartment building. When asked to comment in the aftermath, McCartney generated controversy. 

“I was very shocked, you know,” he said. “It’s terrible news … Drag, isn’t it?” 

Several years later, McCartney explained that he didn’t know how to process his profound grief in front of others.

“I was probably more shattered than most people when John died,” he told Good Morning Britain in 1985. “And I had plenty of sort of personal grief. But I’m not very good at kind of public grief. So someone thrust a microphone into my face the day it happened and said, ‘What’s your comment?’ Now all the other pundits came out with great comments: ‘Well, John will be sorely missed.’… All I could muster was, ‘It’s a drag.’ And it was like … I couldn’t say anything else but that. I just couldn’t.”

Paul McCartney’s daughter recalled his reaction to John Lennon’s death

Lennon’s son, Sean, said he has seen the interview with McCartney, and said he views McCartney’s reaction to Lennon’s death as an inability to process the news.

“I always notice the look in his eyes and the tone of his voice. Really felt like someone who was unable to process what was going on,” he said in the documentary Man on the Run. “He just seemed almost robotic, which I think some people took possibly as coldness, but I never took it as that, ‘cause I understood even then what it was like when something that terrible happens.”

McCartney’s daughter, Stella, said she witnessed a much more emotional reaction from her father after he learned that Lennon died.

“I remember that moment,” she said, adding, “I remember the phone ringing. I remember some, the biggest reaction I’d ever seen and him leaving the kitchen and going outside. That was heartbreaking, like truly heartbreaking.”

He said he still feels in denial about his bandmate’s death

Four decades after Lennon’s death, McCartney said it was still difficult for him to process. 

“I can’t really think about it. It kind of implodes,” he told The Telegraph in 2020. “What can you think about that besides anger, sorrow? Like any bereavement, the only way out is to remember how good it was with John.”

He said that the only way he can handle it is with a good measure of denial.

“Because I can’t get over the senseless act,” he said. “I can’t think about it. I’m sure it’s some form of denial. But denial is the only way that I can deal with it.”