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Paul McCartney quit cannabis because he didn't want to set a 'bad example' to his grandchildren

The 72-year-old said his decision to quit smoking 'was a parent thing'

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Paul McCartney performs at the O2 Arena Getty Images

Paul McCartney finally gave up cannabis because he wanted to set a good example to his grandchildren, the former Beatles singer has claimed.

The 72-year-old told The Daily Mirror his decision to give up smoking was "a parent thing” and insisted he now prefers to relax with a glass of red wine or a “nice margarita”.

McCartney left his hedonistic days a long time ago and is now a strict vegetarian who prides himself on clean living – something he apparently felt compelled to demonstrate by doing the splits and running through his entire gym regime during his interview.

Summarising his routine, he told the paper: "What’s cool about it is that I’ll be in the gym with all these guys doing really big weights, whilst I’m there doing not big weights, and afterwards, when I’ve done my headstand for about five minutes, these big guys will come up to me and say, ‘That was pretty impressive, man!”

Unexpected successful people who have admitted to smoking cannabis

Unexpected successful people who have admitted to smoking cannabis

  • 1/13 Bill Maher

    "Look, I have never made a secret of the fact that I have tried marijuana... About 50,000 times."

  • 2/13 Barack Obama

    "As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life. I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.”

    Buzzfeed

  • 3/13 Boris Johnson

    "It was jolly nice. But apparently it is very different these days. Much stronger. I've become very illiberal about it. I don't want my kids to take drugs."

    AP

  • 4/13 Bill Clinton

    "I experimented with marijuana a time or two."

    Reuters

  • 5/13 Jon Stewart

    “Do you know how many movies I wrote when I was high?”

    Comedy Central

  • 6/13 Harriet Harman

    "I did, when I was at university, smoke cannabis once or twice." But she quickly added she had not taken the drug since then. "I have indulged in the odd glass of wine but not cannabis."

    PA

  • 7/13 Martha Stewart

    “Of course I know how to role a joint.”

    Getty Images

  • 8/13 Bill Gates

    In Stephen Manes’ biography about the Microsoft founder, he writes: “As for drugs – well, Gates was certainly not unusual there. Marijuana was the pharmaceutical of choice…”

    Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

  • 9/13 Oprah Winfrey

    Asked by Andy Cohen when the last time she’d smoked cannabis was, she answered: “Uh … 1982.” “Let's hang out after the show,” Cohen joked. “Okay,” Winfrey said, laughing. “I hear it's gotten better.”

  • 10/13 Sarah Palin

    "I can't claim a Bill Clinton and say that I never inhaled.”

    AP

  • 11/13 David Letterman

    “I went through one period when I smoked a surprising, a really breath-taking, amount of grass almost every night.”

    Getty Images

  • 12/13 Morgan Freeman

    "Never give up the ganja."

    Getty Images

  • 13/13 Steve Jobs

    “The best way I would describe the effect of the marijuana and the hashish is that it would make me relaxed and creative.”

 

McCartney was famously arrested in Tokyo and imprisoned for nine days when airport officials discovered half a pound of cannabis in his bag in the 1980s. He was eventually freed without charge and allowed to return home.

“I don’t do it anymore,” he said of smoking cannabis. “Why? The truth is I don’t really want to set an example to my kids and grandkids. It’s now a parent thing.

“Back then I was just some guy around London having a ball, and the kids were little so I’d just try and keep it out of their faces.”

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