It might have been better if he’d been a little bit more diplomatic and sort of says, “Hey guys, you know, I’d love her to be I I really love her and I just want to be near her all.” Nobody ever thought Paul McCartney could hate anyone until now. He is the charming Beatle, the voice behind Yesterday, the man who sang about love and peace.
But at 82, that piece is over. He’s finally revealing six bands that mocked him, copied him, and tried to outshine him. One even dared to call themselves bigger than the Beatles. And when you hear their names, you’ll see a side of Paul McCartney the world never expected. The Rolling Stones, the Rivals. Paul McCartney couldn’t stand.
At the very top of Paul McCartney’s hate list, the Rolling Stones. Yeah. The so-called bad boys of rock. Everyone thought it was a friendly rivalry, but Paul never saw it that way. He thought they stole his band’s sound, their image, even their timing. It started in the late60s when the Beatles were changing music with every record.
Paul would spend nights in the studio crafting Revolver, experimenting with backwards guitars and new harmonies. A few months later, the Stones dropped aftermath, suddenly full of sitars and the same kind of sonic tricks. Paul was furious. He told friends the Stones were always copying us, never leading.
Then came the real insult. After Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band became the most ambitious album ever made, the Stones released their satanic majesty’s request. The kaleidoscope cover, the trippy lyrics, the costumes, it was a mirror image. Paul reportedly slammed the record onto a table at Abby Road and said they even stole the bloody cover.
Years later, he still wasn’t over it. In 2021, he told the New Yorker, “The Stones are a blues cover band. Our net was cast a bit wider.” That comment burned through the industry. MC Jagger laughed it off on stage, saying, “Paul’s adorable, but we’re still out here playing stadiums. Behind the jokes, the bitterness stayed.
Studio engineers say Paul refuses to discuss the Stones even now. He’ll praise Elvis, Dylan, even Lennon. But when someone brings up Jagger and Richards, he goes quiet. That silence says everything. The Sex Pistols, the band that insulted Paul to his face. Second on Paul McCartney’s blacklist, the Sex Pistols.
And this one wasn’t about music. It was personal. These guys didn’t just reject the Beatles, they mocked them to their faces. It all went down in early 1977 at London’s AIRIR studios. Paul was recording with wings when he ran into the pistols in the hallway. Paul smiled and said, “Hello.
” Sid Vicious looked him dead in the eye and muttered, “You’re just another establishment sellout.” Paul froze. No one, not even John Lennon, had ever spoken to him like that. He turned, walked away, and never acknowledged them again. To Paul, punk was chaos disguised as art. He called their sound an assault on the ears and couldn’t understand how kids were worshiping musicians who barely knew three chords.
But the pistols didn’t care. Johnny Rotten called Paul a fossil in a velvet suit, mocking the very image McCartney had spent years protecting. They laughed at the Beatles soft, happy tunes and said they were music for your grandma. What made it sting worse was that the media loved it. McCartney tried to shrug it off, saying years later, “It wasn’t my thing, but maybe it cleared the air.
” Yet, everyone knew he still held a grudge. He could handle critics, but being humiliated in his own studio, that one left a scar. Oasis, the wannabes that pushed Paul’s patience to the limit. Coming in third on Paul’s, you’ve got to be kidding me list. Oasis. Yeah, those loud, cocky brothers from Manchester who thought they were the second coming of the Beatles.
And for Paul McCartney, that was exactly the problem. In the mid 1990s, when Brit pop was roaring back, Null and Liam Gallagher called themselves the new Beatles. They wore the haircuts, copied the album covers, and bragged to every journalist who’d listen. Noel even said, “If it weren’t for the Beatles, there’d be no Oasis.
” Sounds flattering, right? Not to Paul. He saw it as imitation dressed up as admiration. Behind closed doors, he called their music loud and self-important, a band playing dress up with history. The tension exploded in 1996 when null told MTV, “We are bigger than the Beatles.” That was it.
McCartney reportedly laughed, shook his head, and said to a friend, “They copied the chords, not the soul.” From that day on, Paul refused to take them seriously. He didn’t hate their success. He hated the arrogance. Oasis acted like they owned the legacy they’d borrowed. At Glastenbury, when Liam swaggered onto stage wearing round lenin glasses, McCartney watched from home and muttered, “Even the glasses.
” He later joked on radio, “They remind me of us, except we could play.” Over the years, Nell tried to make peace, calling Paul a hero. But the damage was done. McCartney never collaborated with them, never joined any tribute show. He once said, “You can’t inherit greatness. You’ve got to bleed for it.
” And that line said everything. The Monkeys, the fake band Paul never forgave. You ever wonder which band Paul McCartney called plastic musicians? That honor goes to the Monkeys. Fourth on his list and easily the one he mocked the most. To him, they weren’t a real band at all. They were actors pretending to be rock stars created by a TV network to cash in on Beetle Mania.
It made Paul furious. He’d turn off the radio whenever I’m a believer came on saying, “They’re singing our style without earning it.” What really broke him was 1967, right after Sergeant Peppers blew up. The monkeys suddenly went psychedelic. Colorful outfits, surreal visuals, flower power lyrics. To Paul, it felt like theft.
George Harrison once recalled Paul pacing the studio, ranting, “They’re stealing our bloody blueprint.” That was the moment McCartney stopped seeing them as harmless imitators and started seeing them as frauds. and it got awkward fast. At a party in Los Angeles, Monkeykey’s frontman, Mickey Dolan, tried to strike up a conversation.
Paul looked at him, smiled faintly, then walked away mid-sentence. Dolan’s later said, “I don’t think he ever saw us as musicians.” Even decades later, Paul’s attitude never softened. When asked in 2011 about the monkeys, he replied with that famous smirk, “Catchy tunes, but certainly no Beatles.” The smile said, “No hard feelings.
” But the tone said the opposite. The Beeges. The night Paul realized he’d been replaced. Fifth on McCartney’s secret hate list were the Beeges. And this one cut deeper than Pride. Paul didn’t just dislike their music. He hated what they represented. They were the proof that his era was fading. By the late 70s, disco had taken over the world.
Saturday Night Fever ruled the charts and the Gibb brothers were everywhere. Records, radio, films. Their falsetto harmonies dominated the same airwaves the Beatles once owned. Paul couldn’t stand it. He told Wings guitarist Lawrence Juber, “It’s the same three chords as everyone else, just faster.
” Behind that joke was envy. The BGs had shattered sales records that once belonged to the Beatles. Things got icy in 1979 when both acts were recording in Miami. Word spread that Paul deliberately rescheduled his sessions to avoid running into them. An engineer who worked at the studio said, “You could feel the tension.
” The BGs were celebrating another hit, and Paul just stared at the floor. He hated being reminded that the spotlight had moved on. The BGs never said a bad word about him, but Paul’s silence spoke volumes. For someone who’d once ruled the charts, watching a new pop perfection rise must have been torture. The Beach Boys, when admiration turned into quiet envy.
Last on McCartney’s hate list, and maybe the most complicated one, were the Beach Boys. This was just about envy. The kind that sneaks up on you when someone else touches perfection before you do. Back in 1966 when Pet Sounds came out, Paul was blown away. He called God Only Knows the most beautiful song ever written.
But that admiration soon twisted into obsession. He told George Martin, “We’ve got to top this.” The result was Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band, and it worked. But deep down, Paul knew Pet Sounds had lit the fire. Then Brian Wilson started working on Smile, a project so ambitious it terrified everyone.
Paul followed the sessions closely, even dropping by once to play a Carrot as percussion gag during a recording. When Wilson later scrapped the album because of mental breakdowns, Paul’s sympathy was short-lived. He reportedly said, “If you can’t finish what you start, you shouldn’t be in this business.” Cold, but honest.
The real tension came later that year at a dinner in Los Angeles. Paul made a cutting remark about the Beach Boys new tracks being simplistic. Wilson went silent for days. That one comment stuck. Fans noticed Brian stopped mentioning Paul for years. Even decades later, McCartney still couldn’t give them full credit. He’d praise God Only Knows, then add for American pop of that time. Always a qualifier.
Maybe Paul didn’t hate the Beach Boys at all. Maybe he hated that they once inspired him more than he ever wanted to admit. So, what do you think? Were Paul’s grudges justified, or was he simply tired of being copied? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below. And don’t forget to like, subscribe, and hit the bell for more untold stories from music’s biggest legends.
