Paul McCartney admits the "Paul is Dead" theory is true... in a way

3 November 2025, 13:11

By Mayer Nissim

Paul is Dead? Paul (sort of) agrees with that.

Loading audio...

"Those freaks was right when they said you was dead," snarled John Lennon on his caustic diss track 'How Do You Sleep?', taking aim at his former Beatles bandmate Paul McCartney.

That line was a nod to the bizarre pop conspiracy theory that Macca actually died in a car crash in 1966 and was replaced by a lookalike, with apparent "clues" to the scheme supposedly littered over The Beatles' later songs and sleeves.

The urban legend was obviously a load of nonsense (we'd be more likely to believe that Jim Morrison is alive, frankly), but it's lingered over the years, even being skewered by the man himself with the title and sleeve of his Paul Is Live concert album in 1993.

And now he's addressed the theory head on, and accepting that it's actually true. Well, kind of.

"The strangest rumour started floating around just as The Beatles were breaking up – that I was dead," Sir Paul told The Guardian.

"We had heard it long before, but suddenly, in that autumn of 1969, stirred up by a DJ in America, it took on a force all its own, so that millions of fans around the world believed I was actually gone. At one point, I turned to my new wife and asked, 'Linda, how can I possibly be dead?'.

Paul McCartney is Dead Conspiracy Theory, Explained

He added: "But now that over a half century has passed since those truly crazy times, I’m beginning to think that the rumours were more accurate than one might have thought at the time. In so many ways, I was dead...

"A 27-year-old about-to-become-ex-Beatle, drowning in a sea of legal and personal rows that were sapping my energy, in need of a complete life makeover. Would I ever be able to move on from what had been an amazing decade, I thought. Would I be able to surmount the crises that seemed to be exploding daily?"

Rebirth came in his new stripped back life in Scotland, with McCartney adding: "The old Paul was no longer the new Paul. For the first time in years, I felt free, suddenly leading and directing my own life."

Paul McCartney ais wife Linda at their farm near Campbeltown in Scotland, 1971. Picture: Alamy

McCartney has done a fair bit of looking back of late, and this week releases new book Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run, edited by Ted Widmer.

The book is compiled of quotes from the main players, being a mix of both new interviews and some archive tapes.

It's the second major retrospective project Paul has undertaken in recent years, and follows "lyrics memoir" The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present.

That book and its accompanying podcast McCartney: A Life in Lyrics, was made up of conversations McCartney had with Irish poet Paul Muldoon about 154 of his songs from over the years.