Of the four distinct personalities that comprised The Beatles, the one largely regarded as the most clean-cut, straight-laced, and the kind of guy you’d be willing to introduce to your parents was the “cute” one, Sir Paul McCartney. Yet, in an ironic twist of events, McCartney was the first Beatle to spend a significant time in jail over drug possession. Of course, it wasn’t the charge that was remarkable—everyone but Ringo Starr had already had run-ins with the police over drugs by 1980. But Macca was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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More specifically, the musical legend behind hits like “Blackbird”, “Helter Skelter”, and “Yesterday” was at the Tokyo International Airport while on tour with his band Wings. The musicians had recently been in the States, and while there, McCartney had amassed an, er, significant collection of marijuana. Not wanting to waste his stash, McCartney quickly threw it into his carry-on luggage and went through airport security.
As McCartney described it, “When the fellow pulled it out of the suitcase, he looked more embarrassed than me,” per Performing Songwriter. “I think he just wanted to put it back in and forget the whole thing, you know. But there it was.” And indeed, there it was.
Paul McCartney Spent Just Over a Week in a Tokyo Prison
While marijuana certainly wasn’t legal in the United States in 1980, legal punishment for possession was much more lax in the U.S. than in Japan. Airport security officials arrested McCartney on the spot and escorted him to the Drug Supervisory Center for interrogation. From there, police took McCartney to the Tokyo Narcotics Detention Center, where he was given the descriptor “Inmate No. 22.” Japanese drug laws meant that McCartney was facing up to seven years of hard labor. He managed to get out in nine days on good behavior (and super-mega-rockstar status), though he was banned from Japan for years.
Footage from McCartney leaving the Tokyo detention center all but confirmed that his legal woes didn’t muddy the public’s opinion about him. Fans were still shrieking and pressing against police officers for a chance to get close to the famous rockstar, who was being escorted through an elbows-to-elbows crowd into a car. The musician was apologetic then, and he grew even more rueful in the years since. “It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” McCartney said in a 2004 interview, per Power of Music and Audio. “But you know what? I survived it. And maybe I needed to learn a lesson.”
According to Performing Songwriter, McCartney’s former bandmate, John Lennon, reportedly said of his ex-colleague’s arrest, “If he really needs weed, surely there’s enough people who can carry it for him. You’re a Beatle, boy, a Beatle. Your face is in every damn corner of the planet. How could you have been so stupid?”
The Rippling Consequences of the Ex-Beatle’s Brief Jail Stint
In many ways, Paul McCartney’s brief stint in a Tokyo prison marked the beginning of the end for Wings. The band’s dynamic was already worsening, and the stress—and millions of dollars in lost revenue—of McCartney’s arrest proved to be too much for the group. When ex-Wings member Denny Laine released his first solo album, he named it Japanese Tears, which many took as an obvious nod to the entire debacle.
More tragically, a McCartney fan in his late 20s lost his life after getting into a confrontation with a Miami Airport employee. Kenneth Lambert wanted a ticket to Japan so he could “free Paul.” When law enforcement officers arrived on the scene, Lambert reached for a realistic-looking toy gun. The officer shot and killed Lambert.
The former Beatle knew he had also placed his family’s lives in tremendous danger, too. “For me, the most stupid thing about it all was that I put other people at risk,” McCartney later said. “I’m the Liverpool sailor, right? It’s okay if I get nobbled in Morocco. I can handle that. But I’m married with kids and getting nobbled in Morocco—that just won’t do. Without a doubt, it was the daftest thing I’ve done in my entire life.”
Photo by Bettmann/Getty Images
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