Sir Paul McCartney has revealed that he did not expect to be left the rights to The Beatles catalogue by Michael Jackson.
Sir Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson were once very close. United two generations of chart breakers, the pair worked on a series of singles in the early 80s including the smash hits ‘The Girl Is Mine’ and ‘Say Say Say’.
However the friendship between the two soured after Jackson controversially outbid Sir Paul McCartney to win The Beatles back catalogue in 1985. The ‘Thriller’ icon secured the Northern Songs back catalogue at auction, thus securing the rights to the bulk of The Beatles back catalogue.
According to reports, Michael Jackson had intended to leave McCartney the rights to his songs in his will. With the death of the singer last week (June 25th) it was widely expected that the rights of The Beatles back catalogue would revert back to McCartney and Yoko Ono.
However with the publication of Michael Jackson’s will it has become apparent that this was not, in fact, the singer’s intention. With The Beatles due to re-issue their remastered back catalogue later this year the songwriting royalties are expected to be worth a considerable amount.
Writing on his official website Sir Paul McCartney issued the following statement:
“Some time ago, the media came up with the idea that Michael Jackson was going to leave his share in the Beatles songs to me in his will which was completely made up and something I didn’t believe for a second,” he declared.
“Now the report is that I am devastated to find that he didn’t leave the songs to me. This is completely untrue. I had not thought for one minute that the original report was true and therefore, the report that I’m devastated is also totally false, so don’t believe everything you read folks!”
He added: “In fact, though Michael and I drifted apart over the years, we never really fell out, and I have fond memories of our time together. At times like this, the press do tend to make things up, so occasionally, I feel the need to put the record straight.”
