In 1965, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr received MBEs from Queen Elizabeth II. The Beatles went to Buckingham Palace to receive the honor and awaited their meeting with the queen. While they were nervous, they also cracked a few jokes. Starr recalled one joke he and McCartney made that had him wondering if the queen would punish them.
Ringo Starr worried he and Paul McCartney’s comment would land them in trouble with Queen Elizabeth
While The Beatles were surprised to receive MBEs, or Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire medals, they agreed to accept them. When they received them, they met Queen Elizabeth II.
When the queen asked them questions about the band, Starr and McCartney simultaneously cracked a joke. Starr joked that he worried the queen would hate it so much that she sentenced them to death.
“I went up and the Queen said to me, ‘You started the group, did you?’ and I said, ‘No, I was the last to join.’ And then she asked, ‘Well, how long have you been together as a band?’ and without the blink of an eye, Paul and I said, ‘We’ve been together now for forty years and it don’t seem a day too much,’” Starr said. “She had this strange, quizzical look on her face, like either she wanted to laugh or she was thinking, ‘Off with their heads!’”
Paul McCartney shared what it was like to meet the queen
Before The Beatles met with the queen, they received a list of instructions for how to behave around her. McCartney said their meeting was more relaxed in real life.
“Some equerry to the Queen, a Guards officer, took us to one side and showed us what we had to do,” McCartney said in The Beatles Anthology. “‘Approach Her Majesty like this and never turn your back on her, and don’t talk to her unless she talks to you.’ All of those things. For four Liverpool lads it was, ‘Wow, hey man!’ It was quite funny. But she was sweet. I think she seemed a bit mumsy to us, because we were young boys and she was a bit older.”
Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr have both been knighted
Years after this, both McCartney and Starr were knighted. McCartney received his knighthood in 1997, and Starr received his in 2008. McCartney said it was incredibly thrilling.
“It’s amazing because the first thing you hear, you got a letter through the post, saying ‘You’re gonna be knighted, but don’t tell anyone,’” McCartney told Wired. “So, that’s a pretty buzzy letter to get. It’s very exciting. You have to be a bit of a royalist. You have to think that the queen is cool. Some people actually turn it down.”
Starr also said the honor meant a lot to him.
“It means a lot actually,” Starr said, per BBC. “It means recognition for the things we’ve done. I was really pleased to accept this.”
