Sir Paul McCartney 'cried for a year' following Linda McCartney's death

5 July 2019

Sir Paul McCartney "cried for a year" when his first wife Linda McCartney passed away.

Sir Paul McCartney

The Beatles rocker was married to Linda - with whom he had four children, Heather, 56, Mary, 49, Stella, 47, and James, 41 - from 1969 until she passed away from breast cancer in 1998 following a three year battle with the disease, and Paul has now said he spent a year in a state of constant grief after the tragedy.

He said: "I think I cried for about a year on and off. You expect to see them walk in, this person you love, because you are so used to them. I cried a lot. It was almost embarrassing except it seemed the only thing to do."

Paul remarried in 2002 with media personality Heather Mills, whom he has 15-year-old daughter Beatrice with, but the pair divorced in 2008. He then married for a third time in 2011 with current wife Nancy Shevell.

The 77-year-old music icon also lost his mother to breast cancer in 1956 when he was just 14, and says that at the time, no-one knew what his mother had died from.

He explained: "Both my mum and Linda died of breast cancer. We had no idea what my mum had died of because no-one talked about it. She just died."

And the 'Hey Jude' hitmaker found his mother's passing particularly "tragic" because his family kept a "stiff upper lip" and only cried behind closed doors.

Speaking to BBC Radio Scotland's 'Ricky Ross Meets' programme, he said: "The worse thing about that was everyone was very stoic, everyone kept a stiff upper lip and then one evening you'd hear my dad crying in the next room. It was tragic because we'd never heard him cry."