Paul McCartney reached the realm of billionaire status Monday after Forbes valued his net worth at a colossal US$1.4 billion (NZ$2.5 billion) – making him the world’s third-richest musician.

McCartney’s wealth ranks behind his friend Taylor Swift (US$2 billion or NZ$3.58 billion), with whom he performed The Beatles’ first US number 1 ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ during the pop performer’s star-studded wedding to Travis Kelce at Madison Square Garden in July.

Jay-Z topped Forbes’ revered chart at US$2.8 billion ($NZ5 billion).

Forbes credits McCartney’s ascension to the number three spot to a lifetime of prolific song writing, a series of savvy business moves and an impressive art collection.

But the 84-year-old rocker’s beginnings were humble, growing up in a working class household in Liverpool, northwest England.

Despite The Beatles’ phenomenal success, the Fab Four saw little of the cash their hard work generated at the height of Beatlemania – Forbes reported that their initial record deal provided them with less than a penny per album sold.

“No matter how successful we made the company, we didn’t get a raise,” McCartney wrote in a 2017 Forbes essay.

Seeking a solution, McCartney established a publishing company of his own in 1969 – MPL Communications. This marked the first time the musician managed his intellectual property, providing him with a far greater cut of the royalties.

MPL has been extremely lucrative to McCartney, as he has also used the company to purchase the copyrights to thousands of tracks including the back catalogue of rock’n’roll pioneer Buddy Holly – who McCartney has cited as a major influence on The Beatles.

The publisher also owns the rights to an array of Christmas favourites, including ‘It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas’ and ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’, as well as musicals such as Grease and Annie.

Streaming those Christmas classics, or even performing in a high school production of those musicals, enhances the Brit’s wealth.

McCartney, who is a father of five and grandfather of eight, fought several legal battles to ensure he and his fellow Beatles and their estates were entitled to optimal royalties. The outfit’s Apple Corps holding company now earns more than US$50 million (NZ$89.4 million) annually from streams, vinyl sales and merchandise.

Source: rnz.co.nz

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During the mid-to-late 1970s, Manhattan's Dakota apartment complex was a massive hub for famous musicians and creatives. The building was legendary for attracting top-tier artistic talent because of its thick, nearly soundproof walls, high ceilings, and strict privacy.

In 1975, Roberta Flack and John Lennon (along with Yoko Ono) moved across the hall from each other.
Their friendship began before they became neighbors

Flack and Lennon had already crossed paths professionally in 1972, when Flack performed at Lennon and Ono's One to One concerts at Madison Square Garden, which raised money for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

But living so close to one another would help them form a decades-long, close-knit bond. Sean Lennon (John and Yoko Ono's son) even recalled knowing her as "Aunt Roberta." Because the apartments shared walls, Flack could hear Sean practicing music, and she encouraged him as he learned to play.  Years later, Flack sang "Imagine".

This bit of context makes her 1992 cover of "Imagine" even more moving. More than a decade after Lennon's tragic death, Flack performed the iconic song at the Earth Voice Concert in Tokyo, an event created to raise awareness about environmental issues.

"I really am doing this because I feel that I can make a difference," said Flack. "And I think unless everybody in the world accepts that singular responsibility to make a difference, then things will not get better; they will get worse." It was a fitting introduction to a song that asks listeners to imagine a more peaceful, unified world.

By then, "Imagine" had become one of the defining songs of Lennon's solo career. For Flack, though, it was connected to a much more personal chapter of her life. Sharing the performance with soul singer Lisa Fischer, Flack honored her late friend through his music.

Source: yahoo.com/Heather Wake

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LA’s world-famous Troubadour will be recognized by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a landmark in music history Wednesday, hours before hosting a tribute to incoming inductee Gram Parsons.

To mark the occasion, The California Post looks back at the night Beatle John Lennon got kicked out of the hotspot as told in the book, “The Beatles in Los Angeles.”

Lennon’s inner demons and rage shook the Sunset Strip on the evening of March 12, 1974.
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“He was a bad drunk, if he had two or three or four drinks those inner demons would manifest themselves, a kind of rage would permeate the air,” Lennon’s longtime publicist Elliott Mintz revealed.

“He liked Brandy Alexanders, that was his drink when he drank,” Mintz explained.

Lennon was deep into what’s been called his “Lost Weekend” during which he had left his wife, Yoko Ono, at her suggestion.

“This was his chance to be ‘Bachelor John’ since his first marriage,” Mintz said.

John Lennon, May Pang, and Harry Nilsson sitting together at a club with other people, drinks on the table in front of them.
Singer-guitarist John Lennon attends a comedy performance with May Pang and Harry Nilsson at the Troubadour in West Hollywood, California, March 12, 1974. Michael Ochs Archives

John Lennon, May Pang, and Harry Nilsson sitting together at a table with drinks and other people.
Singer-guitarist John Lennon, center right, May Pang and Harry Nilsson, far right, attend a performance at the Troubadour in West Hollywood, Calif., March 12, 1974. Michael Ochs Archives

“As the weeks turned to months, as his drinking increased, as his yearning to get back to Yoko intensified, as he got a little bit out of control . . . he wasn’t all that happy,” Mintz continued.

John and his drinking buddy, singer Harry Nilsson, were among the celeb-studded audience at the Troubadour for a Smothers Brothers show which included everyone from Paul Newman to Peter Lawford to Pam Grier, the sexy rising star of the new movie Foxy Brown.

Source: nypost.com/Jeremy Louwerse

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A rare Cavern Club membership card signed 21 times by The Beatles before they were famous has been put up for sale for nearly £25,000.

The 1961 Liverpool club booklet was signed by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and original drummer Pete Best.

The signatures date from when the band were aged between 18 and 20, and before Best was dropped and replaced by Ringo Starr.

The card has been uncovered by rock and pop memorabilia specialists Fab Four Memorabilia, and has been listed for sale with a price tag of £24,950.

The membership card was sent in 1961 or early 1962 to a teenage girl living in Endwell, New York by a pen pal in Liverpool.

Lennon signed his name twice, adding "again" above his second signature,

McCartney also signed twice, writing "once again" beneath his name.

Harrison also added his signature, while Best signed the booklet 16 times, with one inscription marking "the final time".

Alfie Evans, of Fab Four Memorabilia, said: "It's the only one in the world.

"Anything signed by The Beatles multiple times is very unusual."

He added: "The girl explained to Pete that he was her favourite and so he signed it 16 times.

"But at the time, Pete was a lot of people's favourites."

"There was a protest at the Cavern Club when Ringo Starr replaced him with the crowd chanting: 'Bring back Pete'."

Source: yahoo.com/Stewart Whittingham 

In January 1970, George Harrison walked through a vast, decaying house on a hill above Henley-on-Thames, in Oxfordshire. Grass was growing through the floorboards. Outside, the gardens had disappeared under brambles and overgrown yew.

Harrison was 27 and still a Beatle, though the band was weeks away from breaking up. He bought the place anyway. It would become his home, his recording studio and his life’s great project for the next three decades.
The eccentric lawyer who built it

Friar Park was the creation of Sir Frank Crisp, a wealthy London lawyer and passionate amateur gardener. In 1889, he bought land on the edge of Henley and built a sprawling Gothic Revival mansion, finished in the mid-1890s, with towers, spires and well over 100 rooms.

The house was striking, but the grounds were the real spectacle. Crisp filled them with surprises: caves, underground passages, a subterranean boating lake, grottoes lit to look magical, and a huge alpine rock garden topped by a model of the Matterhorn, built with thousands of tons of stone.

Crisp also had a sense of humor. He loved garden gnomes and placed many of them around the grounds. Stepping stones were hidden just beneath the surface of one pond, so visitors appeared to walk on water. During his lifetime, the gardens were regularly opened to the public.
Decline and the threat of demolition

After Crisp died in 1919, the estate passed through other owners. In the early 1950s, it was bought by an order of Catholic nuns, the Salesian Sisters of St John Bosco, who used it for teaching.

The nuns could not afford to maintain such an enormous property. A garden that once needed dozens of gardeners slowly fell into ruin. The lakes silted up, the glasshouses lost their glass, and the house itself began to rot.

Source: britishheritage.com

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The late Beatles member John Lennon was a father to two kids, Julian and Sean Lennon. He welcomed his younger son, Julian, in 1963 with his first wife, Cynthia Lennon. He then welcomed son Sean in 1975 with second his second wife, Yoko Ono.

While rockstars can certainly become overnight sensations these days, no stardom was quite as memorable as The Beatles craze in the 1960s. Together, the foursome comprised of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr made music, rock, and British history.

But while their songs like “Here Comes the Sun” and “Let It Be” will live on, the members’ legacy also lives on through their kids. That’s especially the case for John, who was tragically shot and killed on December 8, 1980. He was only 40 years old at the time.

John was a father to two children, Julian Lennon, who was born in 1963 to John and his first wife Cynthia Lennon, and Sean Lennon, born in 1975 to him and his second wife, Yoko Ono. While having very different relationships with their father, both children have carried on with the family name and followed in their dad’s famous musical footsteps.

When asked about being the “custodian” of his dad’s legacy in a December 2025 interview with CBS News, for instance, Sean embraced the title, while acknowledging how universal his dad’s music was. “Yeah, technically [I am], but obviously the world is also the custodian of his legacy, I would say,” he said. “I’m just doing my best to help make sure that the younger generation doesn’t forget about The Beatles and John and Yoko. That’s how I look at it.”

Of course, carrying on the family name also brought along some pressure. “It had always been, ‘John Lennon’s son, John Lennon’s son,’ and I’m going, ‘For f’s sake.’ I said, what I need to do for me, first and foremost, is to build up a body of work, a foundation that I can stand on, that nobody can take away from me,” Julian told The Guardian in January 2025. “And I continue to do so. It’s not to show off, it’s just to prove to myself that I can actually do this stuff.”

Source: instyle.com/Giovana Gelhoren 

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