Paul McCartney Divulges Risqué Details About Beatles' Sex Life

At 76-years-old, Paul McCartney is one of the most famous and accomplished men alive. But he is not sitting back and relaxing, instead, he is releasing new music, telling GQ, “I’m still very competitive.”

McCartney never thought he would be a singer-songwriter. He met John Lennon and George Harrison when they were schoolboys in Liverpool. They learned their craft by playing covers of songs in Germany and in an underground Liverpool club. Ringo Starr replaced their drummer, Pete Best, in 1962, and two months later, their first single was released, launching them into stardom.

GQ met up with Paul McCartney over a series of weeks to learn more about the star’s life, and the topics range far and wide: the Beatles’ sex life, working with Kanye, how he once talked John Lennon out of drilling holes in his head, and who he is now and who he was along the way.

He also disclosed never-before-heard information about the Beatles sex life, including telling a story about group masturbation. It was McCartney, Lennon and maybe three of Lennon’s friends.

“What it was,” he explains after GQ prompted him, “was over at John’s house, and it was just a group of us. And instead of just getting roaring drunk and partying—I don’t even know if we were staying over or anything—we were all just in these chairs, and the lights were out, and somebody started masturbating, so we all did.”

McCartney also said that he “thinks its true” that while all sharing a room in their pre-fame Hamburg days, the other Beatles kept quiet and listened as 17-year-old George Harrison lost his virginity — then they all applauded at the end.

“I think that’s true,” McCartney said, carefully, to GQ when asked about this story. “The thing is, these stories, particularly Beatles stories, they get to be legendary, and I do have to check: Wait a minute. I know we had one bed and two sets of bunks, and if one of the guys brought a girl back, they could just be in the bed with a blanket over them, and you wouldn’t really notice much except a little bit of movement. I don’t know whether that was George losing his virginity—it might have been. I mean, I think in the end this was one of the strengths of the Beatles, this enforced closeness which I always liken to army buddies. Because you’re all in the same barracks. We were always very close and on top of each other, which meant you could totally read each other.”