Sir Ringo Starr left fans concerned for his wellbeing after suffering a pretty brutal on-stage fall while performing in New Mexico recently.
The former Beatles drummer, 83, is one of just two surviving members of the popular rock band alongside Sir Paul McCartney, 81.
Many people will know that the band’s co-lead singer, John Lennon, was shot and killed in 1980 aged just 40, while guitarist George Harrison died of lung cancer in 2001 at 54.
It obviously comes as no surprise, then, that fans became concerned after Starr suffered a nasty tumble, especially given his age.
The musician and his All-Starr Band had been performing for excited fans for about two hours at the Rio Rancho Events Center in Albuquerque on Wednesday (September 20) when the incident occurred.
As his band played the encore, ‘Give Peace A Chance’, Ringo ran onto the stage after taking a short break and tripped, falling flat onto the floor, seen in a video obtained by TMZ.
While it all looked pretty painful, Starr managed to hop back up and continued singing along with his band.
Not long afterwards, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer made a lighthearted comment about his fall, telling the crowd: “I fell over just to tell you that, thank you,” in reference to the title of the song. He then promptly left the stage.
Starr’s lengthy career in the music industry has taken many different twists and turns since he first appeared on the scene with The Beatles in 1960.
Originally from Liverpool, northwest England, the rock band dominated the decade before splitting up in 1970 – and since then there has been a lot of gossip surrounding who actually broke up the band.
McCartney hit out at widely-held rumors that he was the member who first left the band, telling BBC Radio 4 (via The Guardian) in 2021: “I am not the person who instigated the split. Oh no, no, no. John walked into a room one day and said, ‘I am leaving the Beatles.’ Is that instigating the split, or not?”
He then added that Lennon had described the decision to leave the band as “quite thrilling” and “rather like a divorce”. Though, for the other three members, it apparently felt as if they’d been “left to pick up the pieces”.
In 1970, McCartney shocked fans by answering a journalist’s question by claiming that The Beatles no longer existed – meaning fans began gossiping about whether the ‘Temporary Secretary’ singer was the person to blame for the band breaking up.
Though, McCartney explained that this incident only happened after months of the foursome pretending that they hadn’t split, as their new manager Allen Klein had told them to keep quiet about it while he finalised some business deals.
“It was weird because we all knew it was the end of the Beatles but we couldn’t just walk away,” McCartney told the BBC, saying that eventually he “Eventually, McCartney became unhappy with the subterfuge and “let the cat out of the bag” because “I was fed up of hiding it”.
As the band’s time together eventually came to end, Starr, McCartney, Harrison, and Lennon faced many creative differences, especially as they had all began to embark on solo careers.
Their final album, ‘Let It Be’, was recorded in 1970 and released one month after they split – topping the charts in the US and the UK, per The Chicago Tribune.
Today, The Beatles’ music remains culturally significant, and they’re widely regarded as the most influential band of all time.
If you liked this article, you may be interested in reading more about how Paul McCartney used AI to create a new song with John Lennon’s voice!
READ MORE
- George Harrison’s son shares last heartbreaking wish of his famous Beatle father
- Dolly Parton covers The Beatles’ “Let It Be” with the help of Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr — listen to it here
