John Lennon's No-Holds-Barred Letter To Paul McCartney Gets A Hefty Price Tag

"Get Back," the Peter Jackson documentary on The Beatles, was a multi-hour tour de force which gave Beatles fans and music lovers an unguarded and unfiltered look behind the carefully crafted lens of the greatest rock and roll group of all time. In their review of the series, The Guardian wrote that Paul McCartney doesn't come off as "some kind of controlling ego-monster" as previously thought. Rather, we see McCartney endeavor to support his bandmates, offer pathos and understanding, all while crafting some killer tunes seemingly out of nowhere (he was just *that* good a songwriter). But as the documentary didn't flinch from showing how some relationships and tensions were frayed (George Harrison quit the band in the middle of the "Let It Be" sessions and had to be coaxed back by McCartney and John Lennon), it's understandable that the Fab Four broke up merely a year later after recording "Abbey Road," per RadioX.

But now, that friendly vibe displayed between McCartney and Lennon in the documentary is being put into question with a private letter – which Lennon sent McCartney a year after The Beatles disbanded — going up for auction. And Lennon doesn't mince words when it comes to his true feelings about his former songwriting partner. 

In 1971, a year after The Beatles disbanded, Paul McCartney gave an interview to the now-defunct music magazine Melody Maker, and when John Lennon read it, he was none too pleased. Firing off a typewritten letter to both McCartney and cc'ing the Melody Maker editor (via TMZ), Lennon accuses McCartney of a whole host of bad behavior. 

After accusing McCartney of ungratefulness for the money he earned from The Beatles, sneering at McCartney's criticism of a Toronto charity show that The Plastic Ono Band played in '69, and rebuffing McCartney's critique of their song "Imagine," Lennon wrote, "If you're not the aggressor (as you claim), who the hell took us to court and s**t all over us in public? ... Who's the guy threatening to 'finish' Ringo and Maureen, who was warning me on the phone two weeks ago? Who said he'd 'get us' whatever the cost? As I've said before – have you ever thought you might possibly be wrong about something?" While the letter does have its sweet and charming moments — he cheekily calls McCartney his "obsessive old pal" — Lennon ends with a reminder that he cannot be unlinked from wife Yoko Ono. "I thought you'd have understood BY NOW that I'm JOHNANDYOKO."

The three-page letter is to be auctioned off by Gotta Have Rock and Roll and is expected to fetch between $30,000-$40,000. We like to think, wherever Lennon is now, he's giggling that his angry missive is worth $10,000 a page!