Paul McCartney Claims Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Co-Founder Jann Wenner Broke His Induction Promise

Paul McCartney is opening up about his delayed induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

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Back in 2015, Joe Hagan conducted an interview with McCartney for his book, Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine.

Though the book was published in 2017, it only contained “a fraction” of Hagan’s interview with McCartney. Now, though, Vanity Fair has published the interview in full, and some fascinating details have come to light.

One such detail surrounds that of the Beatles members’ individual inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Jann Wenner, who founded Rolling Stone, co-founded the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation in 1983, and served as its chairman from 2006 to 2020.

The Beatles were inducted into the Hall of Fame as a group in 1988. Then, ahead of the 1994 induction ceremony, Wenner asked McCartney if he’d induct John Lennon into the Hall.

McCartney said he initially agreed to the ask, but later returned to Wenner to ask him, “Well, wait a minute. What about me? Maybe I’ll do John, and then maybe I should go in.”

According to McCartney, Wenner said “we can’t do that.”

“In all my dealings with him, it’s never up to Jann,” McCartney said. “It’s up to these other people down the corridor somewhere. He happens to have ‘owner-editor’ on his door, but they’re responsible for things?”

McCartney went on to claim that Wenner told him he’d get his turn “next year.” The rocker “bought the deal,” which is one Wenner has said he does not remember making.

Paul McCartney on His Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction

When the 1995 class came around, though, McCartney was not included on the inductee list.

“So it was like, ‘Can you ring Jann? What’s going on? I don’t appear to be in it,’” McCartney recalled. “F**king bastards.”

McCartney was eventually inducted into the Hall in 1999. During that ceremony, McCartney’s daughter, Stella McCartney, wore a T-shirt that said “about f**king time.”

“It was later, and it wasn’t when I was promised it,” McCartney said of his induction. “A verbal contract was not worth the paper it was written on.”

The situation bothered McCartney so much because “it all added to this historical thing that John was really it in the Beatles, and that the other three of us weren’t, by implication.”

“To me—me and John writing—it was so equal. And sometimes it was not equal. Sometimes I was absolutely the one that got his ass out of bed. Which I don’t go around saying,” McCartney said. “So you won’t find me saying, ‘It was me.’ You’ll find other people saying it was him. But I don’t want to do that. I’m happy with half credit.”

The remaining Beatles—George Harrison and Ringo Starr—were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2004 and 2015, respectively. The latter induction is thanks in large part to McCartney’s “campaign” for his one-time bandmate, he said.

“So I’m inducting him. Cleveland, April 18,” McCartney said in the 2015 interview. “So that’s nice. To me, it’s like, this is the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Ringo is rock and roll, and he’s famous.”

Photo by Gustavo Caballero/Getty Images