Tell Me Why: Paul McCartney Reveals Who's to Blame for Beatles Breakup

McCartney's "self-interview", which went viral back in April 1970, served as the announcement of the Beatles breaking up. Since then, for over five decades, fans of the iconic rock band have been speculating about the real cause behind the split.

Sir Paul McCartney has stated that one of the most famous "divorces" in the history of music - the Beatles' breakup - was caused by John Lennon and no one else.

"I didn't instigate the split. That was our Johnny", he said in a BBC interview. "I am not the person who instigated the split. Oh no, no, no. John walked into a room one day and said 'I am leaving the Beatles'. And he said, 'It's quite thrilling, it's rather like a divorce'. And then we were left to pick up the pieces".

Answering his interviewer John Wilson, the musician noted that the band could have survived if Lennon hadn't left it.

"The point of it really was that John was making a new life with Yoko and he wanted... to lie in bed for a week in Amsterdam for peace. You couldn't argue with that. It was the most difficult period of my life".

Paul McCartney greets the crowd as he arrives onstage for his performance on day 2 of the 2016 Desert Trip music festival at Empire Polo Field on Saturday, Oct. 8, 2016, in Indio, Calif

© AP Photo / Chris Pizzello

According to him, Allen Klein, the band's new manager at the time, asked the musicians for some time so they had to pretend for a few months that the Beatles may soon reunite. However, McCartney said he was "fed up of hiding it".

In the end, Sir Paul sued the rest of the band in order to keep the rights to their music out of Klein's hands.

"And they thanked me for it years later. But I didn't instigate the split", he added.

McCartney previously mentioned that archival projects like The Beatles Anthology and Peter Jackson's forthcoming documentary, Get Back, which is scheduled to be released in November, would have never been possible without his legal action.