Paul McCartney says Queen Elizabeth II blew him away: She was a babe
Paul McCartney has named Queen Elizabeth II as the famous person who left him starstruck, telling the Good Hang with Amy Poehler podcast that she blew him away. “She was a babe,” he said. His remarks were reported by Hello!.
McCartney also described a childhood crush on the late Queen, as reported by The Sun. He said he was around 21 when he first met her in person. That first meeting came in 1963 alongside his Beatles bandmates, the Liverpool pop group with whom he found fame. It was a brief encounter early in his career, and he spoke about it with clear affection more than six decades later.
The musician joked that his wife, Nancy Shevell, tells him the Queen fancied him. He was careful not to present the idea as fact. He said there is “no knowing if there’s any truth” to the claim. “I like to think it’s true,” he added.
That light-hearted exchange sits beside a long formal association recorded in the honours lists. Queen Elizabeth II knighted McCartney in 1997, the honour that carries the title Sir. He later performed at her Golden Jubilee in 2002, the national celebrations for 50 years of her reign. Both were public duties undertaken by invitation, not private meetings.
After her death in September 2022, McCartney wrote that he had met Her Majesty eight or nine times. That figure comes from his own tribute, not from an official engagement list. The last meeting he identified was in 2018, when he received the Companion of Honour, an award for sustained achievement in public life that is held by only 65 living people at any one time.
What makes this stand out is the length of the thread. A teenage admiration became a 1963 introduction. That introduction became later ceremonies. McCartney, now in his eighties, still picks the Queen as the encounter that stayed with him.
