Paul McCartney says John Lennon broke the Beatles

Now, more than half a century later, McCartney has revealed that it was actually John Lennon who was behind the split.

In an upcoming interview on BBC Radio 4, he told reporter John Wilson: “John walked into the room one day and said, ‘I’m leaving the Beatles. “And he said,” It’s pretty exciting. It’s kind of like a divorce. “And then we were left to pick up the pieces,” McCartney said in a preview that aired Monday on the station’s Today program.

McCartney said Lennon’s decision to leave the group was prompted by his quest for social justice, including movements such as “baggage,” where he and his wife, Yoko Ono, carried bags to urge people not to not judge others based on their appearance.

“The point was that John was starting his life over with Yoko and he wanted to go in a bag, and he wanted to stay in bed for a week in Amsterdam, for peace,” McCartney said. “You can’t argue with this.”

McCartney described the breakup as the “most difficult time of my life” and said he could have imagined the Beatles going on longer if Lennon hadn’t been the source of the breakup.

“The Beatles were breaking up and it was my band, it was my job, it was my life,” he said. “I wanted this to continue, I thought we were doing some really good things – you know, ‘Abbey Road’, ‘Let It Be’, not bad.”

McCartney will publish a book of song lyrics commentary next month, edited by Irish poet Paul Muldoon, including songs written for The Beatles.

He also told Wilson that he and Lennon wrote a four-page piece in the “kitchen sink” genre before they started The Beatles.

The full interview will air on October 23.