Even though music bands seem to be doing rather well, at some point members leaving because of various reasons is somewhat very common. The same happened with the famous boy band, The Beatles.
The Beatles had been tasting success for quite some time before internal conflicts started to arise. Although for years, Paul McCartney was blamed for the split, many believed it to be the leader of the group, John Lennon.
Slowly, the members decided to have other interests and wanted to go down their paths. First Ringo Starr and then George Harrison, both of them felt left out and decided to leave the group silently. John was thinking about doing the same as well.
However, it wasn’t as easy as it looked. When Lennon left the band, he had doubts about his life and career. He wanted to start his solo career but because he had been with the band for a fairly long time, he was unsure about starting fresh.
Being a Beatle, working with the band and the success he had gained over the years was the cause of his doubts. It was the very reason that he had fears about leaving the band.
Many reasons could be pointed out for the band’s disbandment. However many people, including the members themselves, blamed it all on Yoko Ono.
Departing from the band and renouncing his title as a Beatle wasn’t easy especially when his partner was being blamed for his own decisions. Only two weeks before Lennon was assassinated, he was able to open up about his decision to leave the Beatles.
In a conversation with Newsweek back in 1980, he lashed out at those who had doubted his decisions and targeted Ono as the reason behind John leaving the Beatles.
“I was always waiting for a reason to get out of the Beatles from the day I filmed ‘How I Won The War.” Revealing why he couldn’t do it sooner, he continued, ” I just didn’t have the guts to do it. The seed was planted when the Beatles stopped touring, and I couldn’t deal with not being onstage. But I was too frightened to step out of the palace. That’s what killed Presley.”
A year into John and Yoko’s marriage, the world was shocked to hear about the band’s disbandment when the memeber went their separate ways. Just when the public was busy blaming Yoko, their manager passed away.
This further caused tension within the members and took a bad toll on John. Remembering how being a Beatle had caused him problems at that time and how Yoko inspired him to find himself, Lennon said, “The king is always killed by his courtiers. He is overfed, overindulged, and overdrunk to keep him tied to his throne.”
He continues, “Most people in the position never wake up. Yoko showed me what it was to be Elvis Beatle and to be surrounded by sycophant slaves only interested in keeping the situation as it was, a kind of death”.
Just after their disbandment, on the Dick Cavett Show in 1971, Lennon said,” She[Yoko] didn’t split the Beatles. Because how could one girl split the Beatles or one woman? The Beatles were drifting apart on their own.
Creative differences and money problems were already causing enough conflicts in the band. On top of that, John always brought Yoko around for rehearsals, music video shoots, and even on stage, which ended up causing more tension among the members.
With Lennon leaving the band and Paul following along, the group disbanded. During their time at the” Toronto Rock & Roll Festival,” John decided to leave The Beatles permanently, and said, “I want a divorce.”
McCartney remembered in Anthology, “[John said], I wasn’t gonna tell you ’til after we’d signed the contract[ with their label EMI], but I’m leaving the group.’ Our jaws dropped and we signed the new deal in a daze.”
