Paul McCartney Discusses Rift with Michael Jackson on David Letterman

 

 

On Wednesday night's "Late Show with David Letterman," Paul McCartney opened up about befriending and later drifting apart from Michael Jackson.

Paul said Michael originally called him up in the early '80s asking if he wanted to make some hit songs together.

"You know, he came to my house and we got to know the family and stuff," the 67-year-old legend told Dave. "We had a really good time. We made a couple of records together ["Say Say Say" and "The Girl is Mine"], did a video and were very good friends."

The friendship was never quite the same, though, after Michael bought the Beatles music catalogue and decided not to sell it to Paul.

"He kept saying, 'That's just business, Paul, you know,' so I went, 'Yeah, it is,' and waited for a reply. But we never kind of got to it and I thought, 'Mmmmm,' so we kind of drifted apart. It was no big bust-up. We kind of drifted apart after that. But he was a lovely man, massively talented and we miss him," Paul said.

After the interview, the former Beatle and his band rocked atop the marquee of the Ed Sullivan Theater overlooking downtown NYC, playing "Get Back" and "Sing the Changes." (Source)

 

EURWEB went into a further explanation on why Paul and MIJAC drifted apart:

 

In the tutorial, McCartney mentioned he was planning to buy rights to the Beatles music at an upcoming auction. McCartney said Jackson commented that he would buy the rights first. McCartney laughed it off as a joke.

Cut to the auction, where McCartney found out that his buddy paid $47.5 million to outbid him for the catalog. Adding insult to injury, the moonwalker then turned around a few years later and sold the rights to Sony for $95 million.