Everything the Beatles’ Children Have Said About Growing Up With Famous Dads

After Beatlemania swept the globe, many of the members’ children found the rampant popularity affected their own upbringings.

The Beatles was founded in 1960 by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. Both before and after the group’s disbandment eight years later, the musicians each became fathers.

“I’ve always just tried to give my kids a bit of guidance if they seem to need it — but that was mainly when they were younger. Now that they are older, they’re guiding me,” McCartney, a father of five, said in a January 2023 interview on his website. “They don’t need so much guidance these days but if there’s ever a problem, I’m very happy to be the guy they come to.”

He added at the time, “You’re just there to help, and I suppose, have fun with — we do have a lot of fun. Now they’re older, we can have a drink together.”

However, it hasn’t all been rosy memories for the kids. Julian, the eldest son of the late Lennon, told The Guardian in January 2025 that he and his mother had “nothing to do with the Beatles” after John left. (Julian is the son of John and first wife Cynthia. John also shares son Sean with second wife Yoko Ono.)

Keep scrolling to revisit what the Beatles’ children have said about their upbringings:

Julian Lennon

“I’m not part of the inner circle — I never have been,” Julian told The Guardian in January 2025. “I visited him on the odd occasion. But we were very much on the outside.”

While John died in 1980, Julian is grateful for a relationship with his half-brother, Sean.

“I’m thankful that Sean and I get on like a house on fire — we’re best buddies, and he tells me what he can, but things are pretty secret on the Beatles front,” he told the British newspaper. “[It feels] extraordinarily strange, but I’m not upset about it. I’d rather be excited and impressed by what they did and continue to do.”

Two years earlier, Julian told Esquire that McCartney wrote the band’s hit “Hey Jude” about John and Cynthia’s divorce.

“It was ‘Hey Jules’ at first, but that didn’t quite sit well rhythmically,” Julian claimed to Esquire in December 2023. “‘Hey Jude’ was a better interpretation. Paul wrote it to console Mum, and also to console me. … It’s a beautiful sentiment, no question about that, and I’m very thankful — but I’ve also been driven up the wall by it. I love the fact that [Paul] wrote a song about me and for Mum, but depending on what side of the bed one woke up on and where you’re hearing it, it can be a good or a slightly frustrating thing. But in my heart of hearts, there’s not a bad word I could say about it.”

Sean Ono Lennon

Julian’s sibling has also been candid about his father’s legacy.

“There’s so many things I’ve always admired about my dad,” Sean told BeatRoute Media in October 2020. “He never stayed the same. I think that’s really incredible. If you look at the difference between Abbey Road and [the John and Ono collaboration] Two Virgins, it’s such a stark transformation. He was always looking to revise and improve his worldview and his thinking. I think that is true creativity, and it’s true intelligence as well.”

Sean was only 5 years old when John was murdered outside their family home in New York City.

Mary McCartney

Mary is Paul’s eldest daughter with ex-wife Linda.

“Having grown up on tour, I was comfortable around musicians. My childhood gave me a curiosity for the behind-the-scenes moments: what happens before the main event,” she told The Guardian in 2023. “I love to see the practice that people go through to become the best in their field. It’s something I observed from my dad. He has always been so supportive of my career and is the first person I show around a [photography] exhibition. He’s always genuinely interested.”

Mary went on to direct Paul in the 2022 band documentary If These Walls Could Sing.

Stella McCartney

Paul also shared Stella, who became a noted fashion designer, with Linda.

“Each year, I am blessed to have you as my father and it gets harder and harder to put into words truly how much you mean to me,” Stella wrote via TikTok in June 2024. “I hold you so close to my heart that I feel you are with me each moment of each day, in my soul and inspiring me to be the best human I can be. You have always been 100 percent true to yourself, persistent in changing the planet for good, creating from the heart and making a true mark in the course of history.”

She added, “Thank you for being a dad to the core, being real and giving the best hugs a baby could ever experience.”

Years earlier in 2019, Stella said on the Today show that Paul plays with her four children “a lot.”

“He’s a great grandpa,” she quipped. “He’s also a rock star, so it’s hard to pin him down, but when he’s around, he’s great.”

James McCartney

James is the son of Paul and Linda, and he’s also a musician.

“I considered [going into another field] but never seriously. I thought about it,” he told the Journal of Roots Music in 2013. “This is when you’re in college, you think, ‘What am I gonna master in?’ I thought about animation. I always wanted to separate myself from music at the time, I thought about doing sculpture and art. I don’t think a lot of people know what they want to do when they’re that age. I always wanted to do music, but I wanted to separate it from education. …  I’ve always generally been pretty kind of focusing on my own thing, just embracing amazing musicians.”

According to James, he and his dad ultimately “drifted apart a little bit” after Linda died of cancer in 1998.

“That was typical. She was like the glue in the family,” he mused, adding Paul often “leaves me to my own thing.”

James added, “[He] wants me to be focused on my own path, rather than relying too much on him. When we work together, it’s fun, you know, it’s a great experience, like it would be for anyone working with [their] dad.”

Zak Starkey

Zak is one of the sons of Starr, also growing up with legendary Who drummer Keith Moon.

“Keith was like an uncle, really. He was one of my dad’s best friends,” Starkey told Modern Drummer in 2006. “When my brother, sister, and I used to stay with my dad there, we would occasionally spend a few days at Keith’s house. Keith was the babysitter. We would just hang out and talk about anything, really — girls, surfing, bands, drums. He was a really fantastic guy to hang out with. He wasn’t crazy in any way, except for that look in his eye. I was hanging out with my hero.”

Dhani Harrison

Dhani is the only child of George and second wife Olivia. He provided familial insight in his father’s 2011 Living in the Material World documentary.

“My earliest memory of my dad is probably of him somewhere in a garden covered in dirt, somewhere hot, a tropical garden, in jeans, khakis covered in dirt, just continuously planting trees,” Dhani recalled. “I think that’s what I thought he did for the first seven years of my life. I was completely unaware that he had anything to do with music.”

One day, Dhani’s school peers chased him home while singing “Yellow Submarine” — to his confusion.

“I didn’t understand why. It just seemed surreal: ‘Why are they singing that song to me?’” Dhani recalled. “I came home and I freaked out on my dad, ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were in the Beatles?’ And he said, ‘Oh, sorry. Probably should have told you that.’”

After George’s death in 2001, Dhani has made sure to honor his dad’s memory and even remastered several of George’s tracks.