Paul McCartney revealed his frustration over the prolonged wait for his solo induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in an unpublished 2015 interview with journalist Joe Hagan.
The former Beatle was finally honored in 1999—more than a decade after the Beatles themselves were inducted in 1988.
During the interview, conducted in March 2015 while Hagan researched Jann Wenner’s biography Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine, McCartney described an early-1990s incident where Wenner asked him to arrange John Lennon’s induction.
Initially agreeing, McCartney later reconsidered after learning he would not be scheduled for his solo work. “I got back to him and said, ‘Well, wait a minute. What about me? Maybe I’ll do John, and then maybe I should go in,’” McCartney recalled. “And it was like, ‘Oh no, we can’t do that.’ In all my dealings with him, it’s never up to Jann. It’s up to these other people down the corridor somewhere. He happens to have ‘owner-editor’ on his door, but they’re responsible for things?”
McCartney noted Wenner promised he would be inducted the following year. “I said, ‘Okay.’ And I bought the deal. Next year came around [and nothing happened],” he added. “So it was like, ‘Can you ring Jann? What’s going on? I don’t appear to be in it.’ Fing bastards.”
Wenner has stated he does not remember making that promise.
McCartney suggested the delay stemmed from shifting perceptions following Lennon’s 1980 murder. “The thing about John Lennon and McCartney was we were always equal. But, of course, once John got murdered, he became the martyr—the Buddy Holly, the James Dean character—because of the atrocity,” he explained. “So a revisionism started to go on. And Yoko [Ono] certainly helped it. Jann was a big part of that.”
The experience also affected McCartney’s view of Wenner: “None of these things endeared me to him. And it was always, ‘It’s not me.’”
Eventually, McCartney was inducted and his daughter Stella wore a t-shirt reading “About fing time.”
McCartney has remained active at Rock Hall ceremonies, attending Ringo Starr’s 2015 induction and delivering the speech for Foo Fighters’ 2021 induction.
Meanwhile, Wenner’s role with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has diminished. In 2023, he was removed from the organization’s board after controversial remarks published in The New York Times. During his interview, Wenner discussed his book Masters, which focuses on conversations with what he called “extraordinary musicians who dominated rock ‘n’ roll.” The book includes only white male artists. Wenner claimed women were “not as articulate” and Black artists “didn’t articulate at that level.”
By Alex Johnson
