Beatles icon Paul McCartney has seen his net worth increase after becoming the first UK musician to reach billionaire status last year. According to The Sunday Times Rich List, released on Friday, 82 year old Paul’s fortune grew from £1 billion in 2024 to £1.025 billion in 2025, as reported by the M.E. N.
His wealth was boosted in 2024 due to his ‘Got Back’ world tour, which concluded in December with performances in Manchester and London. Additionally, he received a significant financial uplift in 2024 from Beyoncé’s cover of ‘Blackbird’, a song he penned in 1968 about the US Civil Rights movement.
Rebranded as ‘Blackbiird’, Beyonce included the track in her Grammy award-winning album ‘Cowboy Carter’. The song made its debut at number 27 on the Billboard 100 and garnered 14 million official streams and 7,000 downloads in its first week. Paul originally composed the song as a tribute to the Little Rock Nine, a group of students who faced racial discrimination when they enrolled at the all-white Little Rock high school in 1957, reports the Liverpool Echo.
This incident served as a test case for a supreme court ruling that declared segregation in schools unconstitutional. Arkansas governor Orval Faubus deployed the national guard to prevent the students from entering the school. However, when federal troops were subsequently brought in to escort them, the nascent civil rights movement gained nine heroes.
Regarding the lyrics of ‘Blackbird’, Paul revealed in a 2002 interview with Californian radio station KCRW: “I was in Scotland playing on my guitar, and I remembered this whole idea of “you were only waiting for this moment to arise” was about, you know, the black people’s struggle in the southern states, and I was using the symbolism of a blackbird.
“It’s not really about a blackbird whose wings are broken, you know, it’s a bit more symbolic.” In his book ‘Many Years From Now’, co-authored with Barry Miles, Paul delved deeper into the song’s meaning. He explained: “I had in mind a black woman, rather than a bird.
“Those were the days of the civil rights movement, which all of us cared passionately about, so this was really a song from me to a black woman, experiencing these problems in the States: ‘Let me encourage you to keep trying, to keep your faith, there is hope.'”.
“As is often the case with my things, a veiling took place so, rather than say ‘Black woman living in Little Rock’ and be very specific, she became a bird, became symbolic, so you could apply it to your particular problem.” In December, Paul performed two shows at the O2, with former bandmate Ringo Starr making a special appearance at one of them. Upon taking the stage at the December 19 gig, Ringo exclaimed: “I’ve had a great night tonight, it’s been a great show.”
Ringo and Paul have reunited on several occasions since their time in The Beatles, including during Paul’s 2019 Freshen Up tour and at Ringo’s 2015 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction. The gig marked the finale of Paul’s Got Back Tour, which kicked off in October, with the legendary musician performing in cities like Paris, Madrid and Sao Paulo, as well as two nights at Manchester’s Co-Op Live and The O2.
Just last week, Paul joined 400 industry heavyweights in calling on the Prime Minister to bolster UK creativity and economic growth by clamping down on copyright infringement by AI.
In a public plea addressed to Keir Starmer to safeguard copyright, the “lifeblood” of their professions, a plethora of stars, filmmakers, and creative powerhouses have put forward their argument for a change to the Data (Use and Access) Bill. This amendment would compel tech firms to disclose how they utilise creative content to train artificial intelligence systems.