George Harrison's Final Words To Ringo Starr Sum Up Their Entire Friendship

When Ringo Starr visited his old friend George Harrison in 2001, the former Beatles had an emotional exchange. The two men, who’d been as close as brothers at times but also weathered some potentially devastating storms, let everything crumble away and were simply there for each other. In fact, Harrison’s final words to Starr will bring a tear to the eye of fans of any age.

Beatlemania

Honestly, The Beatles need no introduction, beyond some simple table-setting. So, here’s the gist: their eight years as the biggest band in the world changed music, profoundly shaped mainstream culture, and turned four young lads from Liverpool into lifelong icons. In fact, they were so vitally important that when they broke up in 1970, their fans were bereft, almost as if they’d lost a loved one.

The break-up

In truth, the disbanding of The Beatles had been building for several years before Paul McCartney sent out his earth-shattering press release. Being the most famous people in the world had become an albatross around the necks of the boys in the band. They were burned out and their personal relationships had begun to suffer under the weight of such intense expectation.

Internal power struggle

To most fans, the song-writing partnership of McCartney and John Lennon is what drove the band to global success. But behind the scenes, the two pals would butt heads constantly, with Lennon admitting in a 1973 interview, “If you can’t scream and yell at your best friend, who can you scream and yell at?” They wound up in a power struggle for creative control of the band.

The Quiet Beatle

In the end, it’s believed that the other group members all became disillusioned with McCartney’s dominating presence. And another spanner in the works came when George Harrison, often dubbed the “Quiet Beatle,” felt his burgeoning song-writing talents were being ignored. He once complained that the band would record eight Lennon/McCartney songs before any of his efforts were given a chance.

What about Ringo?

Where did this all leave Ringo Starr, though? Well, in 1968, two years before they officially broke up, the drummer quit the group. With the majority of the creative output being focused on his three band-mates, he began to feel overlooked and underappreciated. So Starr quit and went off to Italy for a vacation. The group pleaded with him to come back – and eventually he agreed to.

A lifelong bond

All this is to say that, yes, the inter-personal relationships between The Beatles could sometimes be strained. And yes, their in-fighting did lead to the demise of the band. But the men still shared an incredible bond that few other people in the world could understand. Then in 2001, two decades after they lost Lennon to an assassin’s bullet, the three remaining Beatles met up in a New York hotel.

Some tears, more laughter

At this point, they were well aware that Harrison was dying from lung cancer and likely didn’t have very long left to live. So, they met up, along with Gil Lederman, Harrison’s physician, to take one last trip down memory lane. As Lederman would go on to recall, “There were some tears — but there was more laughter than anything else.”

A spirited affair

“It was a spirited affair, not a sombre one,” Lederman continued. “There were lots of laughs and lots of fun. They spent hours reminiscing… At the end, after both Paul and Ringo had left, [George] was fine and calm. He was a very happy man. This meeting meant so much to him.”

My little baby brother

McCartney would also talk of that final encounter, saying, “He was about ten days away from his death, as I recall. We joked about things — just amusing, nutty stuff… He was my little baby brother, almost, because I’d known him that long.” McCartney then revealed that the two friends, who were more like siblings, shared a tender exchange that was unusual for them.

We held hands

“We held hands,” McCartney revealed. “It’s funny, even at the height of our friendship — as guys — you would never hold hands. It just wasn’t a Liverpool thing.” With both men knowing Harrison wouldn’t be around much longer, though, they threw aside any outdated notions of what men can or can’t do. As McCartney said, “It was lovely.”

George and Ringo

For some reason, while The Beatles were known as the Fab Four, history’s chosen mostly to focus on Lennon and McCartney. Yet the band also contained a second duo whose friendship and creative synchronicity was arguably just as important: Harrison and Starr. In fact, Harrison was integral in Starr joining the band.

Rory Storm & the Hurricanes

In 1962 The Beatles were plying their trade in their native Liverpool, England, having come together two years previously. Their drummer, though, wasn’t Ringo Starr, who was then a member of Rory Storm & the Hurricanes. Behind the kit in The Beatles was Pete Best, a man who’d soon be forced out of the group to make room for Starr.

Recruiting Ringo

And it was Harrison who apparently pushed for The Beatles to recruit Starr. In The Beatles Anthology, Harrison revealed, “I was quite responsible for stirring things up. I conspired to get Ringo in for good; I talked to Paul and John until they came round to the idea.” So Harrison clearly believed in Starr right from the start.

Incredible front line

Interestingly, in 2012 Starr told the Toronto Star that, two years prior to him joining The Beatles, they’d supported the Hurricanes at a gig in Hamburg. Even at that point, though, he could see the massive potential the group had. “They were just starting out and we were the biggest band in Liverpool,” Starr recalled. “But John, Paul and George — oh my! What a front line they made.”

Pete forever, Ringo never

Jumping ship was clearly the right call for Starr to make, but initially sections of The Beatles’ audience were far from pleased. A disgruntled group of Best supporters actually protested outside the venue of Starr’s second gig with the band, chanting, “Pete forever! Ringo never!” The situation apparently got so bad that Harrison’s face was bruised while he was trying to protect Starr from the angry mob! Now that’s friendship.

Jimmie Nicol

Harrison then had Starr’s back again in 1964 when the drummer fell ill before a huge scheduled tour of Australia. The poor guy had tonsillitis and couldn’t perform, so the band’s producer George Martin came up with a simple solution: replace him. Martin proposed drafting in a drummer named Jimmie Nicol specifically for the tour.

George puts his foot down

To Starr’s chagrin, both Lennon and McCartney agreed to the plan without much fuss. Harrison, on the other hand, put his foot down. As Martin admitted in The Beatles Anthology, “They nearly didn’t go on the Australian tour. George is a very loyal person and he said, ‘If Ringo’s not part of the group, it’s not The Beatles.’”

The guilt trip

Harrison doubled down by saying, “I don’t see why we should do it, and I’m not going to.” In the end, Martin and band manager Brian Epstein put a guilt trip on Harrison by insisting that if he wouldn’t agree to the tour, then he’d be “letting everybody down.” Though Harrison was still reticent, eventually he gave in and the band went Down Under.

It wasn’t the Fabs

But Harrison was still quick to let it be known in The Beatles Anthology that he’d remained convinced that the tour was ill-conceived. “With all respect to Jimmie — we shouldn’t have gone on tour without Ringo. It wasn’t the Fabs,” he stated. “Can you imagine the Rolling Stones going on tour: ‘Oh sorry Mick, you can’t come.’ I couldn’t understand it. It was silly.”

Legal action’s threatened

Now, while Starr and Harrison were extremely close in many ways, their relationship did have some rocky periods. Take, for example, the time Harrison reportedly considered taking legal action against Starr. That isn’t very friendly! It all stemmed from Harrison being upset when he heard Starr’s 1976 re-recording of Harrison’s “I’ll Still Love you.”

Mixed reaction

No one knows exactly what happened, but it seems that for some reason Harrison wasn’t able to take part in the actual recording. But then, when he heard the completed track, he didn’t what the producers had done with the mix. Still, it seems a big leap to go from this to thinking about suing your friend, but that’s exactly what Harrison did.

Georgie sued me

Thankfully, though, nothing ever came of the threat and no suits were ever launched. But it definitely caused a bit of awkwardness between the friends, as the pair revealed in a 1988 television interview. When speaking about the last time they’d had a flare-up in their friendship, Starr joked, “The last time we were cross was when Georgie sued me.”

We are always cross

A seemingly embarrassed Harrison replied, “That was the last time. We are always cross.” Starr didn’t leave it there, though — he went on to explain his side of the story! He added, “Yeah, yeah, we are still cross. The last time he called he said, ‘I’m going to sue you.’”

I’ll always love you

Starr said that he replied, “You are not, George, don’t say that,” to which Harrison responded, “‘No, no, I’m going to sue you.’” Starr then added, “Because he wrote this song and I had it mixed by somebody else, and he didn’t like the mix. So, I said, ‘Sue me if you want, but I’ll always love you.’”

The affair

Eventually it all became water under the bridge for Starr and Harrison. This may seem surprising, as threatened legal action would be hard for many people to get over. But the two men had somehow kept their friendship going in 1970 following a much much more serious betrayal. You see, long before the idea of suing anybody was floated, Harrison had an affair with Starr’s wife!

The party

In Beatles tour manager Chris O’Dell’s book Miss O’Dell, she claimed that the revelation came out one night at a party. It was attended by Harrison and his then wife Pattie Boyd, as well as Starr and his wife Maureen Starkey. O’Dell wrote, “We sat at the long wooden table in the kitchen, Ringo and George on one bench, Pattie and I facing them on the opposite bench.”

George drops a bomb

“Maureen spent the entire evening flitting around like a little bird, landing here, then there, jumping up to cook an omelet for Ringo, refilling our drinks, bringing plates of food to the table,” O’Dell continued. And it was then that Harrison dropped a bombshell. O’Dell claimed that he turned to Starr and said, “You know, Ringo, I’m in love with your wife.”

Thinking better of it

O’Dell couldn’t believe that Harrison would say such a thing in front of his own wife. She also claimed that Starr’s reaction was understated — he simply replied, “Better you than someone we don’t know.” Either way, it then transpired that Harrison and Maureen had apparently been having an affair.

Ringo’s horrified

According to Starr’s biographer Michael Seth Starr, who wasn’t actually related to him, the drummer hadn’t been as accepting of the affair as O’Dell’s account would indicate. In his book Ringo: With A Little Help, he claimed that Starr was absolutely “horrified” by the situation. To cope with the distress, Starr reportedly went partying with Lennon in Los Angeles.

Caught in the act

A few weeks after the untimely revelation, Boyd made a shocking discovery when she returned home one evening. Her husband was in their marital bed with Maureen. Boyd was understandably furious and set about getting some measure of revenge on Harrison by going back to something he’d stopped her from doing for years: modeling.

The situation

The affair became known in the group as “the situation,” and though both couples stayed together for several more years, both Starr and Boyd would wind up having their own affairs. Boyd hooked up with Ronnie Wood of The Faces — and subsequently The Rolling Stones — and Starr got together with model Nancy Lee Andrews. Starr and Maureen eventually divorced in 1975, with Harrison and Boyd following suit a couple of years later.

The documentary

Fast-forward to 2011 and the documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World is out. Helmed by legendary Goodfellas director Martin Scorsese, the well-received doc featured an illuminating and emotional revelation from Starr. The drummer spoke of the last time he visited his old friend and choked back tears as he told the cameras about Harrison’s final words to him.

George was very ill

“The last weeks of George’s life, he was in Switzerland, and I went to see him, and he was very ill,” Starr recalled. “You know, he could only lay down.” At the time, Starr wasn’t only going to see his sick friend in Europe — he was then supposed to travel to America to check in on his daughter, who was also seriously ill.

His final words

“And while he was being ill and I’d come to see him, I was going to Boston, because my daughter had a brain tumor,” Starr revealed. “And I said, ‘Well, you know, I’ve got to go, I’ve got to go to Boston,’ and he was…” At this point, emotion got the better of Starr, who trailed off and paused before adding, “Phew, it’s the last words I heard him say.”

Last laugh

After a few moments, Starr revealed, “He said, ‘Do you want me to come with you?’” This piece of gallows humor between long-time friends showed that Harrison was thinking about Starr’s plight, despite his own being so serious. Starr was clearly still affected by the memory. “Oh God,” he said. “So, you know, that’s the incredible side of George.”

Great minds

In 2020 Starr elaborated slightly on the story when being interviewed by Rolling Stone. He emphasized how amazed he was at Harrison’s empathy, even while in such dire straits. Starr added, “‘Do you want me to come with you?’ How many people say great things like that to you, really give themselves?”

The departed

Indeed, over the years Starr’s often spoken about how much he misses his departed band-mates. For instance, in 2021 he was interviewed by Stephen Colbert, who inquired, “How often are they on your mind?” Emotion visibly grabbed hold of Starr, and he replied, “Yeah, quite a bit.”

Three brothers

“We just had two sad anniversaries,” Starr continued. “George’s was 20 years ago when we lost him. John’s was 40 years ago, for God’s sake. I always say I was an only child and suddenly I had three brothers. We were really close.” In fact, Starr felt the men’s bond was so tight that it was “almost psychic.”

Always there

So Harrison’s final words to Starr perhaps summed up their friendship perfectly. The two superstars had been through a lot during their time in the spotlight. While they occasionally fought and some mistakes were made, they were always there for each other in the end. Through thick and thin, Harrison often looked out for the man he’d drafted into the band — and he was still doing so on his deathbed. It’s a shame that things for the next generation in the Beatles family tree haven’t been quite so smooth sailing...

Weight on their shoulders

All four bandmates took the plunge into parenthood, but being a father perhaps didn’t come so naturally to all of them. John Lennon fathered two sons, and the unusual family dynamics certainly took their toll on Julian and Sean. Born 12 years apart, their childhoods were the complete opposite of each other. And even after their father’s death, the half-brothers still had many struggles to overcome.

Sons of a legend

As kids, Julian was perhaps best known for inspiring the song “Hey Jude,” one of the Beatles best-known hits. While Sean’s earliest taste of individual fame came with his appearance in Michael Jackson vehicle Moonwalker. Together, though, they are without doubt most famous for being the sons of pop legend John Lennon, one of the founding members of The Beatles.

Worlds apart

However, being born over a decade apart and with different moms, Julian and Sean had very different upbringings on different sides of the Atlantic. Both essentially grew up without a father, albeit for very tragic reasons in the younger sibling’s case. He was just five-years-old when his father was assassinated outside their home.

That day in December

John was shot outside New York’s Dakota Building in December 1980. The apartment building housed the family’s main residence and has since become a shrine to the murdered rocker. And believe it or not, Sean still calls it home.

Losing a parent

While Sean was just five-years-old at the time of his dad’s death, Julian was a teenager of 17. And while losing a parent can often increase the strength of sibling bonds, that simply wasn’t the case here. In fact, John’s death made their relationship all the more unusual.

Leaving the band

That isn’t to say that the half-brothers’ relationship wasn’t already slightly unusual. And perhaps given the crazy nature of the life of a pop legend, that odd bond is understandable. Having helped take the Beatles to super-stardom, John left the band in 1969, just seven years after their first success, and he soon went solo.

Life in the limelight

By that time, the Beatles had become the biggest band in the world, selling millions of records, packing stadiums and generally redefining what it meant to be famous. When Lennon left, essentially ending the band, teenagers the world over were distraught. And while the Fab Four were no longer, that extreme celebrity continued to follow them all.

Behind-the-scenes marriage

Years before John went solo, he met Cynthia Powell in 1957 while studying at art school. It was around the same time that he encountered a young Paul McCartney, and, later, an even younger George Harrison. The couple tied the knot in 1962, before anyone had heard of the Beatles. Yup ,the famously mop-haired, gravelly-voiced musician was married the whole time he was in the band.

Private life

There’s a reason that you may not have known that John was married. And that’s because the band’s management decided to keep it a secret. Why? Well, just a few weeks after their wedding, the Beatles released their debut hit “Love Me Do,” kicking off the all-screaming, all-crying, knicker-throwing extravaganza that was Beatlemania.

Deny it all

The band’s enormous success with young people, in particular, girls, meant that admitting John was married might put off large swathes of their target audience. So it was decided that no one would ever mention the nuptials, or his wife. Even Cynthia was told to never admit to being the star’s other half.

Secret pregnancy

So when Cynthia became pregnant with Julian, she was forced to wear baggy clothes to hide her baby bump in public. The couple’s son was born in 1963, just as the Beatles’ fame was hitting its towering heights. As such, he and his mom were installed in John’s country manor, Kenwood Estate.

Kenwood Estate

Located just outside London, the estate housed a palatial home, something that Cynthia told Fresh Air was par for the course back then. She said, “The first thing you do is, if you’re a pop star and you’ve got a lot of money, you buy a mansion.” And of course, for a small boy, living in a country manor was a dream come true.

The good times

Julian remembers the family’s time together at the estate fondly. As he told The Guardian in 2020, the atmosphere in the house was electric. “A lot of the happy memories of my father are from the late 1960s at Kenwood. Without knowing it, I probably saw some of the greatest musicians in the world come and go through that house.”

Riding shotgun

But it wasn’t just the world famous musicians that made Julian’s time at Kenwood special. “At the time, my dad had his famous psychedelic Rolls-Royce Phantom V, which I adored because it had a record player in the back,” he added. Posh cars notwithstanding, there were other reasons for the young boy to love his countryside home.

The need for a nickname

Julian recalled, “As a kid, I thought my dad was pretty happy – with the family, the family home and his place in the world.” So blissful was the atmosphere that Julian ended up with a permanent nickname. “At Kenwood, my father and I were close... although my first name is also John, I started to get called Julian or Jules, since when my mom would shout, ‘John, your dinner’s ready!’ both my dad and I would react.”

Behind closed doors

Despite the family bliss that Julian described, his mom Cynthia had a slightly different perspective. During the Fresh Air interview, she revealed how difficult being married to a Beatle could be. “We saw very little of [John]. And when he did come home, he was so exhausted and so tired and so overwhelmed by the pressures of the outside world that… all he wanted to do was collapse.”

Caught in the act

Perhaps inevitably, the couple’s marriage began to deteriorate and broke down altogether after John met Yoko Ono. But the split wasn’t particularly well-planned. As Cynthia told Fresh Air in 1985, “[Ono] had been staying with John that night and I came home and they were there. Which was sort of curtains for our marriage, as far as all of us were concerned, really.”

Cast aside

At just five-years-old, Julian had a completely different perspective on his parents’ 1968 split. As he put it, “Suddenly, my dad disappeared off the face of the planet. At least, that’s how it seemed to me.” But that wasn’t the only result of John’s leaving as far the little boy was concerned. “I felt as if my mom and I had been cast aside,” he told The Observer.

A decade of silence

And those ramifications would last for many years. Julian revealed to The Observer just how long it took for the father and son to reconnect after the 1968 divorce. “Maybe ten years passed during which my dad and I barely spoke. I was very angry about how he left the family.”

Holidays with Dad

Cynthia eventually persuaded Julian to talk to his father. And they repaired their relationship to the point that the youngster spent some holidays at John’s home in New York, where he’d moved in 1971. Around that time, he recalls that the former Beatle gave him a guitar for his birthday. But once again this bliss would be somewhat short lived.

The rift begins

John and Yoko married in 1969, the same year that the Beatles split. And the couple’s only child, Sean, came into the world in 1975. John essentially retired during this period, becoming a stay-at-home dad for the first few years of his youngest son’s life. The contrast between the two boys’ early childhoods, though, was plain for all to see.

Father-son time

Sean himself has many happy memories of the dad John could be. Unusually for the time, Ono spent long hours working, leaving the pair with plenty of father-son time. As he told Rolling Stone magazine, the former Beatle had a playful attitude. “I have a lot of memories of just talking with him, hanging out and watching TV. He loved The Muppet Show.”

John's dark side

But there was a dark side to having John present all the time. For a start, Sean wasn’t allowed to watch TV adverts – at all. And he also wasn’t allowed any sugar. That meant no soda or candy. But, it seems, the star also had some anger issues. “I have some less than happy memories, too. Of him screaming at me.”

A violent temper

Sean went on to Rolling Stone, “[My dad] definitely had a violent temper. He would get angry sometimes. And when he did, that voice that was soothing would become like a knife.” But it wasn’t just John’s youngest son that saw the dark side of his personality. His wife likely experienced it, too.

“He was a macho pig”

As Sean explained, “Like, that song ‘Cool Chick Baby,’ that’s all about him having sex with some girl at a party where my mom was. He was a macho pig in a lot of ways and he knew it.” And stories like that left their own impression on the young man. “When I think back on those events, and hear about them, I think of my dad as being a huge a**hole.”

Holding on

With Sean’s arrival and Julian thousands of miles away from his father, the teenager did his best to maintain what relationship they had. As reported by the Daily Express, Julian told the BBC that during those final few years, things were improving, albeit from a distance. “Dad and I had been getting on and speaking a lot more on the phone, when I was sort of 15, 16, 17.”

A grim confession

Then in 1980, John made some public comments about his children that caused some eyebrow raising. Always one for outlandish, comical statements, during an interview with Playboy magazine, the musician claimed there was a big difference between the two boys. “Ninety percent of the people on this planet, especially in the West, were born out of a bottle of whiskey on a Saturday night, and there was no intent to have children.”

One main difference

John went on, “So, 90 percent of us – that includes everybody – were accidents. Julian is in the majority, along with me and everybody else.” But where the star’s second son was concerned, that simply wasn’t the case. “Sean is a planned child, and therein lies the difference.” Wow.

Left with nothing

Within weeks of making those comments, John’s life was tragically cut short in New York. At the time, Julian was a 17-year-old teenager, while Sean was just five-years-old. And while distance and age made a relationship between them difficult, what was to follow made it nigh on impossible. For reasons unexplained, the former Beatle left his entire estate to his youngest son and second wife. Julian got almost nothing.

Legal drama

The details of the will were mostly kept secret, but as of 1998 the Lennon Estate was worth around $300 million. All told, Julian got $3,000 per year as part of his mom’s divorce settlement, plus a trust fund of $65,000, accessible when he turned 25. He later sued Ono for a larger inheritance and was awarded an undisclosed sum. But the legal wrangling meant that the brothers still couldn’t really be friends.

Lost heirlooms

And more pain was to come. Because Julian also revealed in 1998 that he’d had to buy back some of his dad’s possessions as he wasn’t left or given anything to remember John by. As you might imagine, the older brother was angry and hurt by the treatment he’d received from his father.

The move into music

In the meantime, both brothers independently went into music. Julian had a brief but successful solo career, including two U.K. top ten hits and a U.S. number one in the mid 1980s and early 1990s. While he might not have been as big as the Beatles, the young Lennon definitely held his own.

Going solo

Sean, too, became a successful musician both as a band member and solo artist. He also writes soundtracks and produces other acts. And as the decades have worn on, relations appear to have been thawing for a while. In 2019 Julian told radio station Sirius XM, “I think the key point to all this for me has been Sean.”

A role model

Julian went on, “I love Sean so much, I just don’t want to hurt him. I can get over it. I have got over it.” Sean, too, has been warming to his older brother for some time. As he told reporters recently, “Julian is the reason I started playing music. Because when I was a kid, when his first record, ‘Vallotte’ hit the charts, it was the biggest thing.”

Forgive and forget

But just as the brothers had begun to warm to each other, it seems they’d also learned to forgive their dad his transgressions. As Julian told CBS News in 2009, “With Dad running off and divorcing mom, I had a lot of bitterness and anger I was living with. I realized if I continued that [way] towards my dad, I would have a constant cloud hanging over my head my whole life.”

“I miss him every day”

Plus Sean has come to terms with the duality of John’s genius, explosive personality. He told Rolling Stone magazine, “I miss my dad. Sometimes he would yell at me for no f****ing reason. [But] the reality was, he was my dad. I miss him every day. I don’t miss John Lennon the persona. What I miss is the guy who put me on his shoulders and we walked on the beach together.”

Connected forever

These days, it seems that the brothers share a different type of bond. Not just that they have the same father. Nor is it that they’ve both lost that father. Rather, it’s that their father was a Beatle and a man for whom family often proved difficult. Talking to the BBC, Sean explained, “When you’re going through it, it’s weird, but you don’t really have a perspective on how strange it is to be John’s son.”

Brotherly love

Or as Julian succinctly described their situation during the same interview, “The other thing is, we don’t know any different.” Despite all the turmoil and tragedy of their early years, the pair appear to have landed in a much happier, brotherly place. In fact, the siblings are about as loved up as it’s possible to be.

Family first

Julian continued to explain to the BBC, “More than anything, I’m just glad that we’re here, you and I love each other and are able to connect and talk so openly about any of this stuff… You are my family.” And Sean, it seems, feels the same way. He replied, “I know. [You’re] the only brother I’ve got.” That comment almost reduced the older sibling to tears. “Don’t get me crying over here!”

Destined for greatness

So both Lennon brothers have been successful musicians in their own right. But they also followed in some of their father’s other footsteps. Because both are vocal activists and campaigners for civil right and climate change action, raising money and awareness through film and charitable trusts. As far as chips off the old block go, the former Beatle could have done much, much worse.