Sometime ‘Maneuvering Swine’ : ‘Martin Luther Lennon’ Image Wrong, McCartney Declares

Former Beatle Paul McCartney, in an article published today, called his one-time partner John Lennon a “maneuvering swine” who has come to be idolized as “Martin Luther Lennon” since he was slain.

Lennon, shot to death in New York on Dec. 8, 1980, was no “holy saint,” McCartney said in a serialized article in the weekly magazine Woman.

Lennon once warned him “not to make a play” for his companion, and later his wife, Yoko Ono, McCartney said.

“He could be a maneuvering swine, which no one ever realized. Now since the death he’s become ‘Martin Luther’ Lennon,” McCartney said. “But that wasn’t really him either. He wasn’t some sort of holy saint. He was really a debunker.”

“I’m stunned,” Ono said in New York. She said she would like to see the article before commenting further.

McCartney said Lennon was insecure, jealous, suspicious, and sometimes paranoiac about McCartney’s songs.

“For 10 years together, he took my songs apart. He was paranoiac about my songs. We had great screaming sessions about them,” McCartney said. McCartney also said Lennon took credit for songs he did not write.

“I saw somewhere that he says he helped on Eleanor Rigby. Yeah, about half a line,” McCartney said.

“No one ever goes on about the times John hurt me. When he called my music Muzak. People keep on saying I hurt him, but where’s their examples? When did I do it?” McCartney asked.

In a statement issued today in London, McCartney said he feared that the magazine article, based on a telephone interview with author Hunter Davies four years ago, could be misinterpreted.

McCartney said in the statement, “I’d like to make it clear that John Lennon was no angel but I, like millions of others, loved him dearly.”