Video: 'John Lennon gives his side of the story of telling Paul he was leaving The Beatles & Paul's response'

(Saturday, September 20, 1969) — At a meeting between The Beatles (minus George Harrison, who was visiting his mother in Cheshire) ostensibly to sign a new recording contract with EMI/Capitol negotiated by business manager Allen Klein, John Lennon announced his intention to quit the group today, effectively bringing an end to the “Fab Four.”

McCartney had started discussing possible plans for the Beatles future, suggesting the band go back and play small clubs under a pseudonym.

Video: 'Paul McCartney on Who Broke Up the Beatles'

“I think we should go back to little gigs – I really think we’re a great little band,” McCartney said. “We should find our basic roots, and then who knows what will happen? We may want to fold after that, or we may really think we’ve still got it.”

But Lennon, who had decided to leave the group more than a week before, was not having it.

‘Well, I think you’re daft,” Lennon reportedly blurted out. “I wasn’t going to tell you till we signed the Capitol deal but I’m leaving the group!”

“I want a divorce. Like the one I got from Cynthia” [his first wife],” he continued.

Klein and McCartney urged Lennon to keep his announcement private until the release of the Let It Be album and film the following year, which Lennon agreed to do.