Paul is usually one of the best PR guys around. He knows how to handle the press and the photographers as well as the fans. However, over the past 50 something years, we have seen Paul make some poor decisions and hitting the young Star photographer in 1981 is at the top of that list, although he did apologize and make things right quickly afterwards---most likely because he realized how terrible he would look in the newspaper the next day if he didn't.
Paul Latest hit – the man from the Star!
Daily Star
January 21, 1982
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| This is the photo Paul Massey took of Paul without his permission that started the whole thing. |
This is Paul McCartney, as you’ve never seen him before---fighting mad! The picture was taken yesterday seconds before the pop superstar bopped Daily Star photographer Paul Massey and put him on the floor. Later McCartney apologized to Massey like the nice guy he really is.
“I’m sorry I blew my top, mate!” That was Paul McCartney’s message to Daily Star photographer Paul Massey after their Desert Island dust-up yesterday.
A few minutes earlier, our man had been lying flat on his back after a close encounter with camera-shy McCartney outside a London recording studio.
The clash came when the ex-Beatle arrived to tape a radio interview with Roy Plomley for Desert Island Discs. He spotted 18 year old Massey talking to a doorman at the Oxford Street studio and suddenly cannoned his fist and body at our shocked photographer.
Massey staggered back 16 feet and ended up staring at the ceiling. Then McCartney hoisted him on by his lapel and dropped him again. The incident was all over in a flash and the Wings star was almost as quick to apologize.
He invited Massey to his room and told him, “I’m sorry about what happened. When I saw you standing there I knew there was only one way to stop you taking pictures. “
Immediately afterwards, I thought ‘Poor kid. He hasn’t been doing it long.’ That’s why I asked you here to say sorry. I don’t mind having my pictures taken as long as people as first.”
Massey, who said he was ‘shaken and shocked’ by the encounter, was asked to leave his camera behind during the peace-making interview.
But later McCartney kept a promise to take time off for a photo session.
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| McCartney with Paul Massey after the apology to show the world that he is still one of the good guys. |
Said Massey, “When we first met I didn’t get a chance to ask him about pictures. But afterwards he was very pleasant and now I won’t hear a bad word said about him.
And McCartney, a seasoned campaigner in dealing with the press admitted our man was only doing his job. “But it’s OK now and he’s OK, OK?”