Paul and Linda McCartney had an extremely close relationship. The pair met and quickly fell in love, and then rarely went a night without each other for their nearly 30-year marriage. Linda adapted to having an incredibly famous husband. She learned to deal with both fans and people who were giving him negative attention. At one point, she seemed willing to take a bullet for him.
Linda McCartney seemed ready to take a bullet for Paul McCartney
When McCartney first began dating Linda, she got an immediate crash course in what it meant to date a Beatle. Fans waited outside McCartney’s house all day and did nothing to disguise their hatred of his new girlfriend. They wrote graffiti about her on the gates and shouted at her. One day, a fan threw chocolate mousse at Linda and remained unapologetic even after McCartney scolded her.
As a result, Linda grew very accustomed to aggressive behavior from fans. While at a dinner in France, she proved she would do whatever it took to protect her husband. Luckily, she did not have to.
“On the French Riviera, we were at a dinner after the show when this guy comes up to Paul and says he’s got a gun in his pocket,” Wings drummer Denny Seiwell said in the book Paul McCartney: The Life by Philip Norman. “Linda would have taken the bullet no question, but suddenly this little French security man sitting at our table makes a move — and the guy is gone.”
She was protective over him in other ways
Fortunately, Linda never had to jump in front of a bullet for her husband. She protected him in other ways, though. In 1975, McCartney, Linda, and their three daughters were driving through Los Angeles when a police officer pulled them over for running a red light. Upon searching the car, the officer found 17 grams of marijuana in Linda’s bag and a joint under the passenger seat.
McCartney had spoken about his own marijuana use by this point, but Linda took full responsibility for the drugs. According to Norman, she believed an arrest could jeopardize McCartney’s visa. The LAPD ultimately dropped the charges against Linda after she completed a drug diversion program.
Linda and Paul McCartney had a very close relationship
Linda’s protectiveness over McCartney is not surprising, given the nature of their relationship. They were deeply in love and had been since one of their earliest conversations.
“Then Paul detached himself from the circus surrounding him and took Linda aside,” Beatles associate Tony Bramwell said. “As I looked across the room, I suddenly saw something happen. Right before my eyes, they fell in love. It was like the thunderbolt the Sicilians speak of, the coup de foudre the French speak of in hushed tones, that once-in-a-lifetime feeling.”
The couple remained happily together — hardly even spending a night without one another — until Linda’s death in 1998.
