Ringo Starr on Let It Be: “There was no real joy in it”

The Beatles documentary Let it Be is now streaming on Disney+, and in a new interview, Ringo Starr admits he wasn’t really a fan of the film when it first came out.

“I was always moaning about the original film, because there was no real joy in it,” he tells The Daily Beast.

The film follows The Beatles as they record what would wind up being their final album, Let It Be; they broke up one month before the film’s release. In one scene, Paul McCartney and George Harrison are caught having an argument, which Ringo describes as “this litter downer incident.”

“But that’s just how it was; four guys in a room, you know?” he says. “You’re bound to have a few ups and downs.”

Thanks to Peter Jackson’s 2021 Disney+ docuseries, The Beatles: Get Back, fans have a bit more context as to what happened during the filming of the doc, and Ringo thinks that makes Let It Be a better experience this time around.

“Now it’s got a start, a middle, and a finish. The start is very slow, and then we get into creating, and then we’re at it and then we’re out,” he says. “I love it. But I’m in it, of course, so six hours is never long enough.”

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.