Paul McCartney’s Daughter Stella Recalls the Ridicule Her Mom Linda Faced for Joining Wings

Paul McCartney’s daughter, Stella McCartney, opened up about the immense backlash, pain and ridicule her mother Linda McCartney faced when she joined his band Wings.

Stella, 54, spoke candidly about the public scrutiny her mom encountered after Paul, 83, announced he was leaving The Beatles in 1970 and forming Wings with Linda — who served as the band’s keyboardist — in the new documentary Paul McCartney: Man on the Run.

According to a Daily Mail story published on Sunday, February 22, the designer explained in the doc that Linda “wasn’t a cookie-cutter example of someone you put in a band.”

“What they, and she especially, had to go through, like when they isolated her voice and ridiculed her? I mean, it breaks my heart,” Stella continued, likely in reference to when Linda performed “Hey Jude” alongside Paul during a 1990 concert, and her raw backing vocals were leaked, per Far Out Magazine.

“I know that there was pain there. I knew she hurt,” she added. “She wasn’t like, cold.”

Rather than being defeated, Stella notes that her mom exhibited “bravery and spirit. That side to her boosted a side that [McCartney] had perhaps lost.”

Before she died from breast cancer in 1998 at age 56, Linda proved all of her critics wrong. Wings went on to have major hits including “Band on the Run,” “Live and Let Die” and “Jet” before it quietly disbanded in 1981. Paul would take that time to focus on a solo career.

Paul and Linda married in 1969 and remained together until her death. In addition to Stella, Paul and Linda were parents to daughter Mary, 56, and son James, 48 as well as Linda’s daughter Heather, 63, from a previous marriage who Paul later adopted. The former Beatles musician would go on to marry Heather Mills from 2002 to 2008.