Video: 'John Lennon Rolling Stone Full Interview (1970) by Jann Wenner'

(Tuesday, December 8, 1970) — Former Beatle John Lennon sat for four hours today in New York City for a remarkably candid interview by Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone magazine to promote his debut solo album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, which would be released Dec. 11, 1970.

“Big bastards, that’s what The Beatles were,” Lennon said. “You have to be a bastard to make it, that’s a fact and The Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth!”

On the break-up of The Beatles, implying that he was the first to leave: “We were discussing something in the office with Paul, and Paul said something or other about The Beatles doing something and I kept saying, ‘No, no, no’ to everything he said. So it came to a point where I had to say something, of course, and Paul said, “What do you mean?’ I said, ‘I mean the group is over. I’m leaving.’

“I don’t know whether Paul said, ‘Don’t tell anybody’, but he was darned pleased that I wasn’t going to. He said, ‘Oh, that means nothing really happened if you’re not going to say anything.’ It’s like he knew really that this was the final thing.”

The interview was published in two parts in the Jan. 21 and Feb. 4, 1971, editions of Rolling Stone magazine. The entire interview would later be reprinted in the form of the book Lennon Remembers.