Paul McCartney doesn’t talk a lot about his time with the Beatles, but he did do an interview recently where he shot down an old rumor about the superstar group.

It’s been more than 40 years since the Beatles went their separate ways, but some fans still blame band wives Yoko One and the late Linda McCartney for the split. John Lennon went to his grave asserting that the ladies were not responsible for the demise of the Beatles, and now Paul McCartney has stepped forward to stand up for his mate’s widow.

In an interview airing November 9th on the Al Jazeera English TV channel, McCartney sought to set the record straight.

“She certainly didn’t break the group up, the group was breaking up,” McCartney stated. “I don’t think you can blame her for anything.”

“When Yoko came along, part of her attraction was her avant-garde side, her view of things, so she showed him another way to be, which was very attractive to him. So it was time for John to leave, he was definitely going to leave.”

Still, it’s a shame that Lennon’s murder prevented the reunion concert the fans had dreamed of all through the ’70s!