Paul McCartney on Why He Refuses Fan Selfies

Paul McCartney has been one of the most recognizable faces on the planet for over 60 years — and he’d very much like to keep some of that life to himself, thank you very much. The Beatles legend, 83, opened up on The Rest Is Entertainment podcast with hosts Richard Osman and Marina Hyde about why he flatly refuses to pose for fan photos, why influencer culture leaves him scratching his head, and what it actually feels like to be that famous for that long.

The selfie thing, he says, comes down to something deeply personal. “As time’s gone by, things have changed. Now — phones. So if I meet someone, they’re reaching for their phone, and I say: ‘I’m sorry, I don’t do pictures,’” McCartney explained. “And that is radical these days.”

Radical enough, apparently, to catch Oprah Winfrey off guard. “I told that to Oprah — I’m name-dropping now — and she said: ‘You don’t do pictures?’ I said: ‘No.’ She said: ‘Why?’ I said: ‘I don’t want to.’ It’s as simple as that.”

The Monkey on the Beach

But McCartney doesn’t just leave fans with a flat no. He goes deeper — and he’s got a whole story ready for the occasion. It involves a beach in Saint-Tropez, a stranger with a monkey, and a pay-per-photo setup that, to McCartney, captures exactly what he’s trying to avoid.

“I go into this long explanation about how, down on the south coast of France in Saint-Tropez, there’s a man on the beachfront who has a monkey, and you pay to have your photo taken with the monkey,” he said. “I really do not want to feel like that monkey. And when I take a picture with someone, I do feel like him. I’m not me anymore — I’m suddenly something else.”

It’s not about ego, he insists. It’s the opposite. “Something important to me, something related to your question about innocence and staying normal, would be lost. The minute I start thinking I’m something above myself, I won’t like me. It’s very important for me to just be me.”

He also pointed out that celebrity attitudes toward fame have shifted dramatically over the decades. When the Beatles first broke through, nobody was complaining about being recognized. “When you’re first famous, you love it — because it’s what you were trying to achieve. So something goes well, people in the street recognise you, and you love it. There was none of this, ‘Oh, people are bothering me’ — that’s a modern affliction. We loved it. And you learn to deal with it.”

On Influencers: “People Who Don’t Seem Particularly Talented”

From there, McCartney turned his attention to the broader cultural shift around fame — and he didn’t exactly hold back. Asked what baffles him most about the 21st century, he landed squarely on influencer culture.

“I think a lot of this influencer stuff — I just don’t really get it, because I’m not that generation,” he said. “But you can’t help seeing it. My wife will be looking at Instagram and showing me something, and then one of those will come on.”

“I think it’s funny — and I suppose it always happened — but people who don’t seem to be particularly talented are incredibly famous. Billions of hits and views.”

He caught himself mid-thought, aware of how it might land. “You’ve got to be careful about saying that, because it makes you sound very old-fashioned. Which I am.”

Fair enough. But it’s hard to argue with a man who co-wrote “Hey Jude.”

New Music, Old Memories

The podcast appearance comes as McCartney gears up to release The Boys of Dungeon Lane on May 29 — his first solo album in five years. The 14-track record draws on memories from his formative years in Liverpool, including early adventures with his late bandmates George Harrison and John Lennon, long before any of them were famous.

He named the album after Dungeon Lane, a spot near his childhood home on Forthlin Road in the Liverpool suburb of Speke. The first taste of the project arrived Friday with “Home To Us,” a duet with Sir Ringo Starr — the last surviving Beatle alongside McCartney — a collaboration that already feels like something fans will hold onto for a long time.

McCartney has described the inspiration behind the album simply: “a lot of memories of Liverpool.” Given everything he shared on the podcast — the desire to stay grounded, to stay himself, to not become the monkey on the beach — it sounds like the record is very much about remembering who he was before the world decided who he’d be.