Sir Paul McCartney has met a great many famous people over six decades in music, but when the comedian Amy Poehler asked him on her podcast, Good Hang, which famous person first left him starstruck, his answer came at once: the Queen. “And that’s an autograph you’re not going to get,” he joked in the episode released on 13 October, before adding that he simply loved her.
A schoolboy’s admiration
McCartney, now 84, grew up in Liverpool and was a child when Elizabeth II came to the throne. He told Poehler that he and his friends were dazzled by the young monarch, and he admitted, with a laugh, that they admired her for rather more than her constitutional role. He thinks he was about 21 when he first met her, as the Beatles’ fame was taking off, and he described that meeting as special.
The story that has made headlines, though, comes from his wife, Nancy Shevell. According to McCartney, she is convinced the Queen had a soft spot for him. “There’s no knowing if there’s any truth to that,” he said, “but I like to think it’s true.” Poehler suggested the late Queen would have enjoyed the joke, and McCartney agreed, saying that her sense of humour was one of the things he liked most about her.
Eight or nine meetings
As Vanity Fair Italia recalls, their paths crossed many times. The Queen knighted him in 1997, he played at her Golden Jubilee celebrations in 2002, and their last meeting came in 2018, when he was made a Companion of Honour. After her death in September 2022, he wrote on his website that he had met her eight or nine times. At that final ceremony he leaned in and told her, “We must stop meeting like this”, which earned a small laugh. He later wondered whether he had been a little cheeky, but felt she did not mind. He also told Poehler he was lucky, because she was there in person every time he was honoured. He even wrote a short song about her, “Her Majesty”, which closes the Beatles’ Abbey Road album.
A queen of quiet style
Elizabeth II was famous for pairing calm composure with jewellery that always carried meaning, from her pearls to her brooches and sapphires. If that timeless approach appeals, look at our sapphire earrings and sapphire pendants, the wider range of pendant necklaces, or one of our matching jewellery sets for a polished, put-together finish.
Sources: Vanity Fair Italia (15 October 2026); People (13 October 2026); InStyle (October 2026); The Sun (October 2026); Good Hang with Amy Poehler podcast (13 October 2026).
