Who are the Beatles children?
They’re four of the most famous musicians in history, regarded as one of the most influential bands of all time.
But outside of their careers as rockstars, all four of The Beatles were fathers – with the fab four sharing 11 children between them.
Yesterday, photos went viral showing James McCartney – who is also a musician – looking just like his rocker father Paul.
But what happened to the rest of the Beatles’ children?
From household name Stella McCartney – who has designed royal wedding dresses and Olympic outfits – to the lesser known Jason Starkey who has followed in his father Ringo’s drummer footsteps, all the the band’s offspring have paved their way in creative fields.
Here, FEMAIL reveals how the Beatles’ kids have become potters, activists and composers…
JOHN LENNON: Two sons Julian Lennon and Sean Lennon, both musicians, who became ‘the most important people in the world to one another’ after strained childhood apart
John Lennon had two sons, Julian, now 58, with his first wife Cynthia and Sean, 46, with his second wife Yoko Ono.
The half-brothers have followed in their father’s footsteps, both working as musicians. Sean was only five when John was killed in 1980, with Julian having to break the news to him.
Despite a strained relationship growing up, last year they shared a selfie on a road trip in California.
Julian, who also works as a photographer, has made peace with the partial estrangement from his father before his death. And it seems his friendship with Sean is going some way to provide the paternal relationship that both men have missed so deeply.
He now says, Sean is ‘the one person I care about more than anything in the world’ and that he’s ‘here to love and support him, ’til the end of time and then some.’
It wasn’t always the case. John’s bitter divorce from Julian’s mum Cynthia, and marriage to Sean’s mother Yoko, led to strained relationships. Then, after John’s murder in 1980, there were decades of mistrust — plus a dispute over John’s £250 million legacy.
A mutual friend told told Daily Mail last year: ‘They have been friends for about 20 years, but are growing closer as time passes. People talk about them as if they were enemies, and there was a lot of pain, and a lot of that was very public, but not any more.
‘Yoko said to me about ten years ago: ‘You know that we are a family with Julian, and sometimes families have disagreements. Julian and Sean have always had a bond outside of all of that. They love each other.’
The public chapter of this brotherly reunion started at the LA launch of the three-part documentary, The Beatles: Get Back, which launched on Disney+ last year.
They sat next to each other at the screening and, afterwards, mingled at a party thrown by Sir Paul McCartney’s daughter Stella.
Julian, who has never married, lives in Monaco, while Sean is based in New York with his model girlfriend Kemp Muhl, 34.
Julian made his musical debut at age 11 on his father’s album Walls & Bridges and was the inspiration behind ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ (about a drawing) and ‘Hey Jude’ which Paul McCartney wrote to cheer him up when his parents were divorcing.
A renaissance man – he released his first album Valotte in 1984 and is best known for its lead single Too Late for Goodbyes.
Since he has released six more albums, and held exhibitions of his fine-art photography and has had several children’s books published
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Julian, who also works as a photographer, has made peace with the partial estrangement from his father before his death. And it seems his friendship with Sean is going some way to provide the paternal relationship that both men have missed so deeply. He now says, Sean is ‘the one person I care about more than anything in the world’ and that he’s ‘here to love and support him, ’til the end of time and then some.’ The pair are pictured together in 2006
Sean and Julian’s last public meeting came when the two men recorded a conversation together in October 2020 for the BBC, to mark what would have been John Lennon’s 80th birthday. They reminisced, though some memories were maybe too raw to share.
They said how Julian taught Sean to play guitar to George Michael’s Faith, and was so much Sean’s ‘hero’ that Yoko flew 17-year-old Julian out to New York in 1980 to break the news of John’s death to the then five-year-old Sean.
Julian also revealed how his existence had been hidden at the behest of Beatles manager Brian Epstein – who was also his godfather.
JOHN LENNON’S CHILDREN: Julian Lennon, 58, with Cynthia Powell and Sean Lennon, 46, with Yoko Ono
PAUL MCCARTNEY’S CHILDREN: Heather McCartney, 59, (Linda McCartney’s biological daughter who Paul adopted).
Mary McCartney, 52, Stella McCartney, 50, James McCartney, 44, with Linda McCartney.
Beatrice McCartney, 18, with Heather Mills
GEORGE HARRISON’S CHILDREN: Dhani Harrison, 43, with Olivia Harrison
RINGO STARR’S CHILDREN: Zak Starkey,56, Jason Starkey, 55, Lee Starkey, 52.
Art student Cynthia and baby Julian, born at the start of Beatlemania in 1963, lived in obscurity as John toured the world.
His secret family first came to light in 1966 when Cynthia was photographed pushing a pram. Months later, the marriage was doomed when John met Yoko Ono at an art show.
He moved to New York with Yoko when Julian was just five years old and made a cruelly distant parent. Birthday and Christmas presents were dispatched, unseen by him, from The Beatles’ London office.
Julian was taunted at school for having ‘walls papered with £5 notes’ but, in fact, he and Cynthia had no material wealth, and he had next to no contact with John.
When he was 11, Julian was sent to New York for a few, awkward meetings — Julian estimates he saw his father ten times in all.
‘I lived from birthdays to Christmas, just to be with him,’ he said.
The visits themselves were filled with erratic incidents. Once, John scolded Julian, telling him not to laugh so loudly as he might wake baby Sean. Another time, he offered him a joint.
Painfully, John was besotted with Sean – who also has half-sister Kyoko from Yoko’s first marriage – and had given up working, in order to be a father.
Julian previously said: ‘When I saw the fact that, you know, he’d basically given up music for a couple of years to look after Sean, you know, that was — it was hurtful. I thought, ‘Well, why didn’t he do that for me?’ I was a bit jealous, but I never said anything.’
In another interview, he said he was angry about the neglect. ‘I felt he was a hypocrite. Dad could talk about peace and love to the world, but that peace and love never came home to me.’
In 1980, John was gunned down by Mark Chapman. Julian was put on Concorde to New York. There, he found Yoko’s grief hard to handle. She had wanted to wait until Julian arrived to tell Sean about John’s death, and she wanted Julian’s advice on breaking the news.
Over and over, they rehearsed what Yoko would say. ‘I remember seeing the glint in Sean’s eye, when he actually understood what had happened. And then the tears started rolling,’ he said.
Deep in grief, Yoko asked Julian to stay with them in New York, but he felt that he belonged in Wales with his mother, so left. For the next five years or so, Julian had limited contact with Yoko and Sean.
Julian told an interviewer in 1985 Sean adored him for his physical resemblance to John, but sensed Yoko wanted him at arms length.
His first album Valotte was a hit, and the single Too Late For Goodbyes — in which he sounded hauntingly like his father — an international hit.
Julian dated Brooke Shields and Kylie Minogue and started partying. Meanwhile, Sean was at boarding school in Switzerland.
Yoko had been sending Julian dribs and drabs of money, but Julian wanted a settlement. It was some time coming and there was a big legal fight.
A deal settled in 1996 gave him a percentage of John’s royalties and a lump sum said to be £20 million.
As Julian reflected in 2010: ‘It’s just not worth the stress. I think the key point to all this, for me at least, has been Sean. If I hurt Sean’s mother, then I hurt Sean.
‘It’s a roundabout way of thinking about things. But because I love Sean so much, I just don’t want to hurt him. I can get over it. Have gotten over it.’
With homes in Monaco, France, LA and London, Julian drifted from place to place, holidaying with wealthy and well-connected friends.
He resurfaced in 1998 with an album called Photograph Smile. It was a modest success — but it was outshone by Sean’s first album, Into The Sun, which came out in the same month. Julian was sure it wasn’t a coincidence, and thought Yoko was behind the clash.
He also complained that three or four years could go by without contact from his brother. ‘If I move, I always give Sean my new number. I call him from time to time, but I never get a return call,’ he said.
It was 2006 when, after some prodding from Cynthia, the two men spent a few hours together in Los Angeles.
They found that they had much in common and, in 2007, went to Boujis nightclub in London’s Kensington.
Then, when Sean was playing in Prague later that year, Julian joined the tour unannounced and stayed on the musicians’ bus as it moved through Croatia and Slovenia.
Sean said: ‘How sweet is that? I am totally thrilled and deeply touched by this. It’s really fun having him on the bus. It’s nice to have some quality time with him. None of my friends are willing to rough it on the tour bus, so I am very impressed.’
That contact continued after the tour and, by 2010, Sean attended the opening of an exhibition of photographs by Julian with Yoko. Cynthia said that night: ‘I’ve never seen my son so happy as he is now.’ Julian chimed in: ‘There’s a lot of forgiveness now.’
Sean has continued to make music and tour, and Julian has moved into photographic and philanthropic work. He runs The White Feather Foundation, which works on environmental and humanitarian issues, and is behind a scholarship dedicated to women’s education founded in his mother’s memory. Cynthia died in 2015. He’s also written children’s books.
Both men go out of their way to support one another, and thoroughly enjoy each other’s company.
After their years of estrangement, each other’s company must be a greater treasure than they ever imagined.
In 2020, Julian revealed he was left ‘shaking inside’ following an emergency operation to remove a cancerous growth from his head. He visited his dermatologist just days ago, who noticed a lump on his head which he had had all his life ‘looked and felt a little different’ and she urged him to have a biopsy.
The results showed that the mole was cancerous and Julian immediately went under the knife in Los Angeles to get it removed.
Sean and Julian are also friends with the other children of the Beatles, having posted pictures with James and Stella McCartney in the past.
Following in the footsteps his famous dad, Sean has lent his talents as a musician and producer to a number of high profile groups, as well as boasting his own solo music material.
He has been a member of many bands including – Cibo Matto, The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, The Claypool Lennon Delirium and his parents’ group Plastic Ono Band, and also has two solo albums under his belt – Into the Sun and Friendly Fire.
PAUL MCCARTNEY: Four daughters Heather, Mary, Beatrice, Stella, and son James who all have their father’s creativity working in design, photography and music
With the most children of all the Beatles – Paul McCartney accounts for almost half of the second-generation of rockers, with four daughters and son.
He welcomed daughters Mary and Stella and son James with his first life Linda, who passed away in 1998 from breast cancer. He also adopted Heather from Linda’s previous relationship.
In 2002, he married Heather Mills and the pair welcomed a daughter, Beatrice in 2003.
Heather McCartney: Potter
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Born in the US to Linda McCartney and Joseph Melville See Jr, Heather, now 59, was adopted by Paul when the rocker married Linda – and Paul refers to her as his daughter and she says she considers the musician her father. Heather found fame at a young age and featured in the Beatles film Let It Be and documentary series Get Back. Like many of the Beatles off-spring, she’s found a creative career and is best known for her work in pottery
Born in the US to Linda McCartney and Joseph Melville See Jr, Heather, now 59, was adopted by Paul when the rocker married Linda – and Paul refers to her as his daughter and she says she considers the musician her father.
Heather found fame at a young age and featured in the Beatles film Let It Be and documentary series Get Back.
Like many of the Beatles off-spring, she’s found a creative career and is best known for her work in pottery.
A jetsetter, she showed an interest in art at a young age – taking up printing at the Photographers’ Workshop in Covent Garden at the height of her father’s fame.
She’s also travelled to Mexico, where she lived among natives of the Huichol and Tarahumara tribes and spent time in Arizona to live with her biological father.
Following in her mothers footsteps, she’s also a vegetarian and animal rights activist, but shuns the public eye.
Mary McCartney: Photographer and vegetarian campaigner
Just like her mum, Mary is a photographer and long-term animal rights activist and campaigner.
Now 52, Mary is married to her second husband, director Sam Aboud and has four kids with her first husband Alistair Donald. She’s a Global Ambassador for Meat Free Monday and Green Monday.
Very close to her sisters, she regularly shares photos with them to social media saying how much she ‘loves them’.
Speaking to Weekend magazine last year, she revealed how her children are the biggest critics of her.
‘They’ll say, ‘How many bites do I have to have?’, but the key is getting them to help with mixing things and chopping stuff,’ she says. ‘If they’re involved they’re much more likely to be satisfying to cook for.’
She also shared how she locked down with her father. ‘Dad recorded an album during the last lockdown. He would spend the day working on a song, then come back and I’d cook dinner and we would eat together. It was brilliant.
‘He’d play the song that he’d been working on, and he also asked me to take pictures for the album. It’s great.
‘He appreciates people cooking for him. Not everyone does, but when it happens it’s wonderful. It makes me want to cook more.’
Of course, the McCartneys have form as foodies. The four older children were famously raised as vegetarians, and Linda was a pioneering meat-free campaigner long before veggie diets went mainstream.
Mary not only followed her mother into a photography career, but she also inherited her foodie zeal and has two cookery books under her belt already.
She also has a TV show Mary McCartney Serves It Up which features her cooking vegetarian meals for famous friends including Liv Tyler, Kate Hudson, Cameron Diaz and Nicole Richie as well as musicians such as Mark Ronson and Dave Grohl.
Her mother Linda died from cancer in 1998, aged just 56, which was devastating for her family. Replicating her meals was a way not just of getting them through difficult times, but of honouring her.
Food is the ‘key’ to human connection, says Mary.
‘A lot of my great memories are formed around food in the kitchen, sitting down with friends and family. It just makes everyone happy, the conversation flows.
‘I’m a bit like my mum in that I like the kitchen to be the heart of the home, with everyone wandering through, keeping me company and helping.’
Stella McCartney: Fashion designer
Arguably the most famous of the Beatles’ offspring, Stella McCartney, 50, is an internationally renowned designer designed Meghan Markle’s evening wedding dress and has seen her clothes worn on the likes of Queen Letizia of Spain, Kate Hudson, Karlie Kloss and Rihanna.
No strangers to mingling with royals and A-listers, earlier this year she headed to COP26 with Prince Charles and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Stella is also a keen environmentalist and vegetarian – and has previously said she doesn’t wash her designer clothes because the chemicals are damaging to the environment. She often encourages people to eat less meat runs her celeb-loved brand with a cruelty-free ethos and has never included leather or fur in her collections.
Outside of campaigning, she married British publisher Alasdhair Willis in 2003 and they share four children.
In December, it was revealed her salary rose to £2.7m last year, despite the firm claiming more than £850,000 in support from the government’s furlough scheme. The designer pocketed more than £220,000 more for herself in the year to December 31, 2020 compared to the previous 12 months, even though the business suffered a 26 per cent fall in sales over the same period.
On Boxing Day last year, she expressed her sadness that hunting trials still exists in the UK. Elsewhere, she also partnered with Adidas and Team GB for the 2012 and 2016 Olympics.
James McCartney, Musician
James McCartney is the only son of Sir Paul, and his late wife Linda.
He has played on some of his father’s albums as well as releasing music of his own. After largely shunning the limelight, even working as a waiter in Brighton, Jams later followed in his father’s musical footsteps.
His early life was spent on the road with his parents as they toured with their group Wings. He later played guitar on Sir Paul’s records Flaming Pie and Driving Rain as well as The Light Comes From Within – a track he recorded with his mother before her death from breast cancer in 1998.
He released his debut single Available Light in 2010 before releasing his first album Me in 2013 and his second, The Blackberry Train, in 2016 – both co-produced by his father.
He previously said he had aimed to be ‘better than the Beatles’.
‘When I got to a certain age, I realised that I was somewhat better than other kids at school at guitar and took pride and enjoyment in that,’ he told the BBC in 2012.
‘I then dreamt of being better than The Beatles. I’m not sure if I can do that. If anything, I would love to be equal to The Beatles – but even that’s quite tough.’
He also revealed he was considering forming a group featuring the offspring of the Fab Four, including Ringo Starr’s son Jason, 54, Lennon’s youngest son Sean, 46, and George Harrison’s only son, Dhani, 43.
Previously asked if a new Beatles could happen, he said: ‘Yeah, hopefully, naturally. I don’t know, you’d have to wait and see. The will of God, nature’s support, I guess. So yeah, maybe.’
He said he was ‘up for it’ and added that Sean and Dhani had previously also shown support for the idea.
James, whose mother Linda died in 1998, was known to have fallen out with his father during Sir Paul’s second marriage to Heather Mills.
Previously asked about his relationship with his father, James admitted it had been ‘difficult’ on occasion.
But he added: ‘It’s amazing. Sometimes in the past, a few years ago, it can be [sic] difficult, it can be tense, like families can get. But beyond that it’s beautiful.
‘He’s a genius, he’s beyond genius, and he’s a big inspiration. Very intellectual and amazing at what he does, so it’s great fun.’
Beatrice McCartney: Student
Four years after his wife Linda’s death, Paul wed Heather Mills. The duo expanded Paul’s family by welcoming their daughter, Beatrice, in 2003 but later split after six years of marriage in 2008.
Little is known about teenage Beatrice, who is still at school.
On being a father again, he told The Telegraph in January 2009: ‘I love being a dad. My typical morning these days would be to get up at 6:30 a.m., make breakfast, get Beatrice up, get her dressed and watch some TV.
‘I love every second of it and I’m not exhausted at all. It’s a thrill bringing up a young kid. It’s such an education. I’m a different dad now, but it’s good.’
Beatrice Milly, now 18, who was delivered at the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth in north London, close to Abbey Road, was named after Heather’s mother Beatrice and Paul’s aunt Milly.
A statement issued by the couple shortly after Beatrice’s birth said: ‘Heather and Paul McCartney are delighted to announce the birth of their baby daughter Beatrice Milly McCartney, who was born in London on 28 October at 8.45pm by Caesarean section.
‘The baby, who arrived three weeks early, weighed in at a healthy 7lbs, and both she and mum are doing well. Paul and Heather are ecstatic with the news. They said ‘She is a little beauty and we couldn’t be prouder’, reported the Irish Examiner.
It is thought Beatrice, who stays out of the spotlight, can play the saxophone and when she was younger wanted to become a marine biologist – rather than follow in her father’s musical career.
GEORGE HARRISON: One son Dhani Harrison, a musician like his father
The only child of Harrison and his Mexican-born second wife Olivia Arias, Dhani, 43, grew up at George’s gothic estate Friar Park in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.
Despite their wealth, his mother gave him as normal a childhood as possible out of the public eye. Her determination was matched only by that of Dhani, who, like many of the Beatles children, felt the weight of public expectation and kicked against it.
He was educated at nearby public school Shiplake College and later at Brown University in the US, where he studied physics and design.
His first job was as an aerodynamicist for British sports-car company McLaren. He left when his father died of lung cancer in 2001.
For a time, he even contemplated trying out for the Olympic rowing squad after falling in love with the sport as a boy growing up by the Thames.
In short, he had seemingly done everything he could to ‘not be a musician’ – but finally he succumbed, launching a musical career in 2006, playing lead guitar and vocals with rock band, thenewno2, saying in a previous interview, ‘It’s in the DNA, I guess.’
On his similar looks to his father, he told the MailOnline in 2012: ‘My dad used to say to me, ‘You look more like me than I do.’ You know, it’s exactly the best and worst thing about every day – comforting and sad all at the same time.’
And while he’s never cared for the limelight – as a kid he would tell people his father ‘pushes buttons’ – he admitted his father ‘taught me how to make records from an early age. I grew up in a recording studio.’
He was also close to Paul McCartney’s children as a kid, explaining: ‘Of all of them (the Beatles children) I think I’m most similar to Stella and Mary. I really relate to the way they’ve dealt with their circumstances – they’re like big sisters to me.’
He added: ‘I did rebel. I was the rebel in my family, because my dad wanted me to go and just travel with him. My dad would be like, ‘Sod your exams – let’s go to the South Pacific.’
‘You don’t have to burn books, you don’t have to rebel against teachers to rebel; to rebel is to truly own your own self. Rebelling in my family was going and getting on the river [he was a member of the famous Henley-based Leander rowing club] and doing courses and getting your grades.
‘I always knew that if I was going to do anything and be taken seriously in my life, I had to work and work very, very hard. Because you can get a foot in the door by being George Harrison’s son, but you can’t stay there.
‘It’s why I think I’m most like Stella and Mary McCartney. They’re the same. If you want anyone to take you seriously, first of all you have to have good grades or a really hard work ethic.
‘Everyone’s looking at me thinking, ‘He’s got it handed to him on a plate; he got that because of his dad.’
‘So if you do well they curse you, and if you do badly they curse you.’
Academically, he described himself as an overachiever, yet bizarrely he only ever aimed for second place.
‘Who wants to be number one? You don’t want to be the world’s best vet, because then you don’t care about the dogs any more because you’re the best. The second guy always seems to do better.’
He said his music was ‘a way of staying close to him’ – and that it was his father’s death that ultimately decided his choice of career.
Dhani married model turned psychologist Solveig ‘Sola’ Karadottir in 2012 before the couple split in 2016.The couple had no children.
RINGO STARR: Two sons Zak and Jason, who are both drummers, and a daughter Lee, who runs a boutique
Zak Starkey: Drummer
Zak Starkey’s mother is Ringo’s first wife, former Liverpool hairdresser Maureen Cox.
He grew up in Sunningdale, Berkshire, at his father’s mansion, Tittenhurst Park, but played truant from the local school and was educated at home by private tutors, according to the Daily Mail in 2012.
Following his parents’ divorce in 1975, ten-year-old Zak was given his first professional drum kit by his godfather, Keith Moon of The Who, and took over the late Moon’s role in the band in the mid-Nineties.
He has also played with his father’s group, Ringo’s All-Starr band and in April 2006, he joined Oasis as their drummer.
When his mother Maureen was diagnosed with leukaemia, Zak donated bone marrow and blood platelets, but she died of the disease in December 1994.
At the age of 19, he married Sarah Menedikes, his sweetheart of three years, and they have a 26-year-old daughter, musician Tatia. The couple separated in 2006.
Lee Starkey: Boutique owner
Lee Starkey was the third and final child between Ringo and Maureen, having been born in 1970.
After leaving the private King Alfred School in Hampstead, north London, without getting any qualifications, Ringo’s only natural daughter worked at Tower Records before briefly enrolling in drama school.
Just a year after her mother’s death, Lee collapsed and was diagnosed with a brain tumour.
Her father flew her to Boston for a life-saving operation and radiotherapy treatment.
But in 2001, the tumour returned and she was again treated in American hospitals.
She became a recognisable face in 1989 when she appeared in an Oldsmobile advert with her father. The 51-year-old later co-founded a Los Angeles boutique called Planet Alice for 60s-inspired fashion.
But following the closure of the business, and having ditched her plans for a career in music, she went on to become a make-up artist and has been known to dabble with fashion design.
She lives in London with her boyfriend, the Kasabian guitarist Jay Mehler, who she started dating in 2006.
In 2009, she gave birth to triplets, Smokey, Jakamo and Ruby Tiger.
Jason Starkey: Musician
Having once pursued a career as a drummer, Jason is now a photographer.
Along with brother, Zak, and sister, Lee, the Starkeys (Ringo’s original surname) were raised in a large home together.
But all of them went through a rebellious stage as teenagers, with Jason fined £125 in1986, at the age of 19, for stealing a car stereo and, in 1989, appearing in court twice on drugs charges.
Previously a drummer like his dad, albeit less successful than his older brother, he has worked with various indie bands, including his own group Musty Jack Sponge And The Exploding Nudists.
He once said: ‘Being Ringo Starr’s son is the biggest drag of my life. It’s a total pain.’
Jason and his wife, fashion designer Flora Evans, live in London and have three sons, Louie, 22, Sonny, 20, 13-year-old Rock, and Budy, 11.
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