Inside Queen Elizabeth's secret crush on Paul McCartney

Sir Paul McCartney revealed the surprising crush the late monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, had on him when he was part of The Beatles with John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

The 84-year-old sat down on the Good Hang with Amy Poehler podcast on Tuesday, and had an answer ready when he was asked if any famous person he'd met had ever blown him away.  

"The Queen," he replied. "And that's an autograph you're not going to get. She's great. I love the Queen." 

Elizabeth, who passed away in September 2022, met Paul on several occasions throughout his life, including when she knighted him in 1997.

Did Queen Elizabeth have a crush on Paul McCartney? 

"She was a babe," the singer said. "We all used to think, 'Wow, this is amazing.' You know, like, having a king, he's got this girl. This babe. So, we kind of liked her in other ways than we shouldn't have liked her."

"So meeting her was special," he added. Paul was nine years old when the Queen ascended to the throne in 1952, and said he was around 21 when they met in person for the first time.

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"Nancy [Shevell], my wife now, she says, 'She fancied you,'" the father of five joked. "Now, there's no knowing if there's any truth to that…I like to think it's true."

Paul also recalled that Elizabeth had a "good sense of humour". 

When did Paul McCartney cross paths with Queen Elizabeth? 

His first meeting with the former monarch occurred alongside his Beatles bandmates in 1963. They met again almost two decades later at Royal Albert Hall, and their third meeting came in 1996 when she opened the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts with him.

After being knighted in 1997, Paul next saw the Queen at her Golden Jubilee in 2002, where he performed alongside Elton John, Phil Collins, Rod Stewart, Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton and Ricky Martin, amongst other stars.

Paul McCartney's heartbreaking tribute to Queen Elizabeth revisited

Paul opened up about their final meeting in a touching tribute posted to his website after her death. "Looking back, I am honoured and amazed to see that I met Her Majesty eight or nine times, and each time she impressed me with her great sense of humour combined with great dignity," he wrote.

"Our last meeting came in 2018. Because of my respect and love for the Queen and her fabulous sense of humour, when I was given the Companion of Honour medal I shook her hand, leaned in and said, 'We have got to stop meeting like this,' to which she giggled slightly and got on with the ceremony. I did wonder if I was a bit too cheeky after saying this; after all, this was The Queen, but I have a feeling she didn't mind."

"I feel privileged to have been alive during the whole of Queen Elizabeth II's reign," he added. 

"When I was 10 years old, I entered an essay competition in Liverpool and won my division for my essay about the British Monarchy, so I have been a fan for a long time. In 1953, when the Queen was crowned, everyone on our street in Speke, Liverpool, finally got a television set, and we settled down to watch the Coronation in glorious black and white."