“Oh no, no, no, John walked into a room one day and said I am leaving the Beatles,” McCartney said. “And he said, 'It's quite thrilling, it's rather like a divorce.' And then we were left to pick up the pieces.”
McCartney said the band would have continued if Lennon had not walked away.
“I thought we were doing some pretty good stuff — Abbey Road, Let It Be, not bad.”
McCartney claims after Lennon announced he wanted to leave, the remaining members of the group were advised by their new manager, Allen Klein, to keep their impending disbandment a secret while he tied up some loose ends.
“So for a few months we had to pretend,” McCartney said. “It was weird because we all knew it was the end of the Beatles, but we couldn't just walk away.”
McCartney's full interview with the BBC will be broadcast on October 23.
Reuters